Six improvised bombs were discovered on the roof of a primary school in a loyalist area of east Belfast yesterday. More than 160 pupils and staff at the Beechfield Primary School and the adjoining McArthur Nursery School were evacuated after a member of staff found one device on the roof.
British army bomb disposal experts found at least five more. Sinn Fein claimed the Ulster Defence Association had put the bombs on the school roof, on the interface with nationalist Short Strand.
Mr Joe O'Donnell of Sinn Fein said: "It would appear that these bombs were for use in future attacks on nationalist homes in Short Strand. This is a very sinister development, especially given the upsurge in UDA attacks since the split in the Ulster Democratic Party."
Sinn Fein also claimed the UDA was responsible for what seemed to be an attempted bomb attack on a man in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast. Sinn Fein Assembly member Mr Gerry Kelly said the man was reversing his car out of his driveway when a package fell off the underside of the vehicle.
He said the incident came the day after the RUC warned some taxi-drivers in Ardoyne that their lives were in imminent danger from loyalists. British army bomb experts took the package away for examination.
Three men were being questioned by police in Derry after a car was hijacked in the loyalist Waterside area on Wednesday night. An RUC spokesman said it was "terrorist related".
The car was seized by masked men armed with batons who broke into a house in the Kilfennan area. The vehicle was later stopped in Drumahoe.
Meanwhile, there have been three "punishment" attacks in loyalist areas of the North. A 19-year-old man was shot in the legs in Edlingham Street in north Belfast. He is being treated in hospital.
A 28-year-old man was shot in the leg at the back of shops in new Mossley, Co Antrim. Another man was shot in the leg in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim. Their condition is understood not to be life threatening.
A British soldier was critically injured in a shooting inside an army barracks in Co Derry on Wednesday, it was disclosed yesterday. He is a corporal from Carlisle who was a chef at the Ballykelly base.
An RUC investigation has begun into the incident. The soldier was walking through the base when a single shot was discharged inside the camp, the spokesman said. There had been practice on the firing range sometime earlier, but the corporal was not involved, and no firing was taking place when he was hit, he added.
The RUC was last night treating as suspicious the death of a woman in the Donegall Pass area of South Belfast. Her body was discovered in a flat in Hartington Street early yesterday. A police spokeswoman said a post-mortem was being carried out.