THE British army fought pitch battles with rioters on the streets of Derry early today, after serious violence erupted shortly before 1a.m.
Army Saracens backed by a dozen Land Rovers pushed rioters out of the city centre into the Bogside, firing repeated rounds of plastic bullets and coming under a barrage of petrol bomb attacks.
The worst violence occurred at William Street near the entrance to the Bogside where the army faced rioters for over an hour. The trouble began when the RUC came under attack at two of the old city gates. The police fired rounds of plastic bullets, but appeared to be seriously stretched by the number of protesters.
Rioters smashed windows, burned cars and attempted first to loot and then to set fire to the Wellworth department store. An RUC spokesman later said that the whole of the city centre had come under concerted attack.
He said that a number of people had been trapped in buildings outside which the rioting was taking place. He declined to confirm that the RUC was unprepared for the extent of the violence but said that huge numbers of people had been involved in the riots.
Up to 1,000 people were involved in disturbances of one kind or another. By 3 a.m. the police and army had succeeded in driving most of the protesters out of the city centre towards the Bogside and the city was relatively calm.
Earlier a protest march by nationalists in Derry passed without violence last night, but ended with a warning from Sinn Fein that the Apprentice Boys would not be allowed in the city next month.
Several thousand people participated in the parade which wound its way from Free Derry Corner in the Bogside to the RUC headquarters at Strand Road.
The RUC consulted the marchers shortly after they left the Bogside, warning that the march was illegal and would be broken up. But no attempt was made to physically block the route, which had not been revealed in advance.
Addressing the protesters protesters from the back of a lorry parked in front of the RUC station, Cllr Mary Nelis of Sinn Fein said the march was "a heroic tribute" to the people of Garvaghy Road and the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast and was a protest against the "murder, mayhem and intimidation" caused by Orangeism.
