SDLP questions loyalist ceasefire

Trouble erupted earlier at the Halliday's Road interface

The nationalist SDLP has urged the government to give a "clear and unambiguous declaration" on the current state of the loyalist paramilitary ceasefires.

The call came after five people, including three children, escaped injury in a pipe bomb attack in north Belfast early on Thursday morning.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on homes in the area and around the rest of the province.

While the incidents have come as part of wider tensions between the two communities in the province, most of the families targeted with pipe bombs and other crude devices have been Catholic.

Alex Attwood: "Government must make public statement"

SDLP chairman Alex Attwood said: "There is now a clear pattern of paramilitary behaviour stretching from Portadown through Belfast, up to Coleraine and elsewhere.

"This pattern confirms that the anti-Catholic, anti-nationalist attacks of loyalist paramilitaries is organised, systematic and growing."

In the latest attack on the Oldpark Road a device was thrown through the living room window of the house at 0030 BST on Thursday and started a fire.

The people in the house managed to put it out.

No-one was injured, but several were treated for shock.

Army technical officers were called to the scene and made the device safe.

Blast bomb thrown at house

Meanwhile, the RUC are investigating reports that gunfire was heard during trouble between nationalists and loyalists in north Belfast on Wednesday night.

Bricks, bottles and metal bolts were thrown, and a crude bomb caused damage to a house on the Catholic side of the peaceline at the mainly loyalist Tiger's Bay.

The householders - a man and woman - were in bed at the time.

The bathroom, bedroom and downstairs windows were broken.

The police said that their follow-up search in the nationalist Newington area of confirmed that a blast bomb was thrown at the back of one of the houses from the loyalist Halliday's Road.

They removed the remains of the bomb for forensic examination.

Shops damaged

On Wednesday afternoon, a number of houses and shops were damaged during street fighting between rival groups in north Belfast.

Windows were broken in shops and houses

Last Monday, there was also trouble in the area when nationalists and loyalists clashed at the community interface between Duncairn Gardens and Halliday's Road.

After that incident Sinn Fein North Belfast assembly member Gerry Kelly called for the security gate between the two areas to be made into a permanent part of the 'peaceline' wall.

The clashes followed a period of tension in north Belfast, which heightened in June when loyalists prevented Catholic school children from passing through the Glenbryn area on their normal route to the Holy Cross Girls Primary school in nearby Ardoyne.