Bus hijacked and set ablaze by loyalists

LOYALISTS hijacked and burned out a bus in the North yesterday, on the eve of the Twelfth of July celebrations.

A group of men hijacked the vehicle and parked it across a road in a loyalist estate in Newtownards, Co. Down, before setting it on fire, sources say.

It’s understood the flames were so intense that the outline of the bus could not be seen through the thick black smoke.

Meanwhile, a High Court judge in the North ordered that a controversial bonfire in east Belfast be reduced in size. The pyre at Bloomfield Walkway is one of hundreds across Northern Ireland which were built to be burned yesterday as part of the annual Battle of the Boyne commemorations.

But it has caused controversy in recent years due to its proximity to houses. The council applied to Belfast High Court for an injunction to force the Department for Infrastructure, which owns the land the bonfire is built on, to reduce the height of the bonfire. A small pile of wood beside the pyre was set alight around 10.45pm.

The move came after the Police Service of Northern Ireland said dissident republicans were responsible for a volley of automatic gunfire on police in Derry on Tuesday.

In a fourth night of violence, six shots were fired at officers close to the city’s famous walls. None of the policemen was injured.

The PSNI are treating the incident as attempted murder.