Renewed IRA attacks on PSNI

Breakaway IRA groups carried out four separate attacks against the PSNI this past week, including an attack in County Antrim in which members of the police force are reported to have received minor injuries.

A grenade style device, hurled at a PSNI patrol in Newtownabbey, north of Belfast as it responded to an alert, left two PSNI men shaken and requiring attention.

The Real IRA Volunteers responsible were seen toescape into the nearby Bawnmore estate.

Local Sinn Fein councillor Gerry O’Reilly said people were “shocked and surprised” at the attack.

Earlier, two viable devices targeted another member of the force, as well as a member of its medical staff, near the village of Claudy, County Derry on Wednesday.

The latter device was condemned in some news media as a possible breach of the UN’s Geneva Convention.

Local Sinn Fein councillor Paul Fleming said those responsible “should take stock of what the community is sayingand cease these activities forthwith”.

“These organisations should listen to the Irish people and go away,” he said.

It is understood the Real IRA were also behind the Claudy attacks.

Meanwhile, the Continuity IRA said they fired a rocket against a PSNI patrol in Craigavon, County Armagh early on Saturday morning.

In a briefing reported by the Guardian newspaper, a spokesman for the Continuity Army Council of the IRA said their operatives had fired a rocket propelled grenade at the patrol shortly after midnight.

There were no reports of any casualties.

LOYALIST GUNFIRE

In other news, two loyalists were arrested and a gun and ammunition were seized after shots were fired in an estate in Carrickfergus, County Antrim.

It is understood the pair are brothers and are loyalists aligned to former UDA ‘brigadier’ Andre Shoukri.

It was unclear last night why the shots were fired, but it is not thought to have been a sectarian attack.

The estate has been the focus of violence in the past few years. Last October a UDA splinter group was blamed for an incident which left one PSNI officer with facial injuries.

Urgent Appeal