Republican News · Thursday 1 November 2001

North Belfast attacks continue

There was no let up in the sectarian campaign of violence being waged by the UDA against nationalists throughout North Belfast in the past week.

Since we went to print last week, there have been over a dozen pipe and blast bomb attacks on the homes of nationalist families. Most of the bombings occurred as loyalists from the Tiger's Bay area continued their campaign on Catholic homes on the Limestone Road and Duncairn Gardens, which border the UDA stronghold.

Outside this area, last Tuesday 23 October, a Catholic family was targeted on the Deerpark Road near Ardoyne and the home of a Catholic pensioner who lives with his sons on Alliance Avenue was also blown up. Both Alliance and Deerpark interface with the Glenbryn area.

In the Deerpark explosion, a Catholic family of six suffered shock when the bomb exploded at their front door. On Saturday night an elderly man in his 80s suffered shock after a bomb was lobbed over the peaceline from Glenbryn and exploded near the back door of his Alliance Avenue house. The man's two sons also live in the house.

In a separate incident in Glenbryn on Friday night last, a British soldier was seriously injured when a pipe bomb exploded next to him. The RUC is blaming the UDA for this attack, which they say was a carefully planned ambush. At about 9pm, a siren went off and gangs of loyalists came onto the streets of Glenbryn and attacked the RUC and British Army. When British Army riot squads moved in, pipe bombs were directed at them. It was then that the British soldier, a member of the Welsh Fusiliers, was injured.

On the following morning, Saturday 27 October, a mob of loyalists came out of Glenbryn and attacked houses at the top of Alliance Avenue. Francis Murphy, from Ladbrooke Drive in Ardoyne, was surrounded by the loyalists and had his car attacked, causing £2,000 worth of damage. Murphy, who was travelling with his daughter and granddaughter, managed to escape but later suffered a heart attack.

He is now critically ill in hospital.

Then, on Sunday morning 28 October, 22-year-old Martin McGreevy suffered serious facial injuries when a loyalists bomb exploded close to him on the Limestone Road. Later that day the RUC arrested a senior loyalist from Tiger's Bay, which sparked more trouble. Up to eight explosive devices were thrown during that trouble.

Attacks on the Limestone had begun in earnest at 6am in the morning when 36-year-old Margaret Hale was viciously beaten by a cudgel wielding loyalists.

In the latest attack on Newington Street, off the Limestone Road, 59-year-old Rosemary Black was injured when a bomb exploded in her back yard on Wednesday, 31 October.

Black was bending down to take clothes out of her washing machine when the device exploded. She said that had she been standing upright at the time of the explosion she would have received more serious injuries.

Derry councillor lucky to be alive

A Derry City SDLP councillor had a narrow escape when his Waterside home was targeted on Friday 26 October. According to the available information, the bomb used to attack Gerry Diver's Kilfennan home is a new and more powerful device than previously used by loyalists.

Diver, who lives in Sutton Park in the predominately loyalist Waterside with his wife and four children, heard a thud and was about to go to the door when the bomb went off. Had his wife not called him back, Diver would have walked straight into the blast, which caused extensive damage to the front of the house.