Northern Irish militants ‘hijacked protests’

Belfast – Pro-British militant groups are instigating and exploiting the riots that have rocked the Northern Ireland capital, Belfast, in the past month, a police officers’ representative said today.

The violence, which stems from loyalist protests over the removal of the British flag over Belfast City Hall, is among the worst in the province since a 1998 peace accord ended three decades of sectarian conflict.

Shots were fired at police yesterday during a third successive day of street battles in which rioters attacked officers with petrol bombs, bricks and other missiles.

Police said today that 70 people had been arrested, including a 38-year-old man on suspicion of attempted murder over the shooting.

Police had said that members of pro-British militant groups helped orchestrate and took part in the first wave of violence in early December. Police Federation for Northern Ireland chairman Terry Spence said: ‘‘What it quite clearly demonstrates is the fact that paramilitaries have hijacked this flags protest issue and they have now turned their guns on the police.’’ ‘‘It is very clear that there are leading members of the UVF [Ulster Volunteer Force], who are exploiting this and are organising and orchestrating this violence against police officers who are out there trying to uphold the law and prevent anarchy on our streets.’’

Both the UVF and Northern Ireland’s other main loyalist militant group, the Ulster Free- dom Fighters, ceased hostilities in 2007 and decommissioned their stocks of weapons.

But in scenes that recalled 30 years of strife, pro-British loyalists began rioting in early December after a vote by mostly nationalist pro-Irish councillors to end the century-old tradition of flying Britain’s union flag from the city hall.