N Ireland rioters attack police for 6th night running

BELFAST, United Kingdom (AFP) – Loyalist protesters on Tuesday attacked Northern Ireland police with petrol bombs, fireworks, bottles and stones during the sixth consecutive night of disorder in the capital Belfast.
Police were able to maintain order in the city’s combustible eastern neighbourhoods without resorting to plastic bullets or water cannon, which were both used to quell Monday’s unrest, and no injuries were reported.
Pro-British protesters have taken to the streets of Belfast almost every night since December 3, when the city council announced that it would no longer fly the British flag all year round at the City Hall.
The decision sparked riots at the start of December which gave way to largely peaceful protests, but the violence has flared again since the start of the new

Loyalists set up burning barricades on the Newtownards Road in Belfast.AP

year.
There are fears of more trouble on Wednesday as the flag is flown for the first time since the ruling in order to mark the birthday of Prince William’s wife the Duchess of Cambridge.
Rioters on Monday used weapons including hatchets and sledge hammers to attack police and their vehicles, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said.
Britain’s Northern Ireland minister Theresa Villiers said the province was being “held to ransom” by the protesters and called for an end to their demonstrations, including peaceful rallies that have blocked traffic for weeks.
“It’s not acceptable that those who say they are defending a Union flag are actually doing it by hurling bricks and petrol bombs at police. It’s disgraceful, frankly,” she told BBC radio.
She added that the protests were doing “huge damage to Northern Ireland’s image abroad”.
The flag ruling has raised tensions in the British province between loyalists – who want to maintain the links to Britain and are mostly Protestant – and largely Catholic republicans who want a united Ireland.
Northern Ireland’s chief police officer Matt Baggott on Monday accused the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, which murdered more than 500 people during the province’s 30-year sectarian conflict, of whipping up the disorder.