A police commander in east Belfast today condemned those who attacked police, firefighters and members of the public in overnight violence.
Superintendent Gordon Reid, commander of the Castlereagh District Command Unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said lives were put at risk in a series of incidents.
PSNI officers and members of the fire brigade were tricked by a hoax call into going to the Ballybeen Estate after they were told children were trapped in a blazing house.
When they arrived in the area shortly before 9 p.m. a number of bottles were thrown at them; no one was hurt.
A number of petrol bombs were also thrown at police in the Dunlady Road area of east Belfast but there were no injuries.
There were also attempts to cause traffic disruption by blocking a carriageway in the Dunlady Road area.
A brick and a petrol bomb were thrown through the windscreen of the cab of an articulated lorry at about 3.15 a.m. The lorry caught fire and the cab was destroyed after it was abandoned. No one was injured.
Supt Reid said: "These tactics are to be condemned in the strongest manner as lives of the community and police officers were put at risk".
Elsewhere,army bomb disposal experts examined a decommissioned hand grenade found at the rear of a house in Parsonage Road in Kircubbin.
There were also a series of hoax incendiary device warnings in Belfast city centre - in Great Victoria Street and Oxford Street.