Sinn Féin has criticised a police operation against crime in the south Belfast area which involved over 100 officers and led to 12 arrests on Tuesday.
The Sinn Féin chief whip and MLA for the area, Mr Alex Maskey, said local nationalists were questioning the motives for such a massive police operation given that the PSNI had failed to tackle loyalist violence against their community.
"People within the community are asking why the RUC/PSNI have not deployed its resources to locate pipe bomb factories or swamp loyalist areas where attacks are being launched from on a nightly basis," he added.
Of the 12 people arrested, seven were released on police bail, three men were remanded in custody at Belfast Magistrate's Court on armed robbery charges yesterday and two others were due to appear in court charged with minor offences.
A police spokesman said the operation, in which officers searched 21 premises, had now concluded but would be followed up in the coming weeks.
Mr Maskey said many people in his community felt that police resources were being deployed in a one-sided manner.
"The fact is that the RUC/PSNI are incapable of dealing in an effective way with any sort of crime.
"For this sort of activity to be effectively tackled we need to see the new beginning to policing promised in the Good Friday Agreement not the current arrangements been forced upon us by the British government," he said.