British army technical officers have defused an unexploded pipe-bomb left at the back of a house in Coleraine, Co Derry.
A number of nearby houses were evacuated during the alert at Loughanhill Park. The attack is not believed to have been sectarian. RUC Chief Insp Nigel Kyle described the bomb as "crude, indiscriminate and lethal", saying such devices had "no place in a civilised society".
Meanwhile, five people, including three children, escaped injury when a pipe-bomb set fire to the living room of their north Belfast home yesterday. The device was thrown through the living room window where it started a blaze but occupants put the fire out themselves.
Army disposal experts were called to the Oldpark Road location to make the device safe. A number of occupants had to be treated for shock.
The RUC was yesterday investigating reports that gunfire was heard during disturbances between loyalists and republicans in the Limestone Road area of north Belfast on Wednesday night. Bottles, bricks and metal bolts were thrown while an explosive device caused damage to a house on the nationalist side of the peace-line.
The incident followed earlier disturbances in the area between loyalist and nationalist mobs. Both sides blamed one another for starting the trouble. When security forces created a buffer zone, rioters threw petrol bombs and acid bombs at them.
A local DUP councillor, Mr Ian Crozier, said his party would be holding a meeting with the North's Security Minister, Ms Jane Kennedy, to call for additional peace walls in the area.
A Sinn Fein MLA, Mr Alex Maskey, accused unionist politicians of having created a political vacuum, allowing loyalist paramilitaries to attack Catholic homes at will.
An SDLP delegation will today meet senior RUC officers to discuss heightened sectarian tensions across the North. Speaking in advance of the meeting, the party's chairman, Mr Alex Attwood, called on the British government to speak out on the state of the loyalist ceasefires.
"The [British] government needs to issue an unambiguous declaration as to the current state of the UDA/UFF ceasefires. There is now a clear pattern of paramilitary behaviour, stretching from Portadown through Belfast up to Coleraine and elsewhere. This pattern confirms that the anti-Catholic, anti-nationalist attacks of loyalist paramilitaries are organised, systematic and growing," he concluded.
The SDLP delegation will submit proposals on how to protect vulnerable nationalist areas to the RUC.