Three people were injured in a loyalist gun attack in north Belfast at the weekend. Six shots were fired from a car, containing four men, at a group of people in Atlantic Avenue, off the Antrim Road.
The shooting took place shortly before 5 p.m. on Saturday. The victims, all in their early 20s, were sitting on bollards when the gunmen pulled up beside them in a red car.
Witnesses said the gunmen opened fire with several weapons before the car sped off towards the loyalist Tigers Bay area. One man was hit in the stomach, another in the shoulder and the third suffered a minor graze. Two of the men are stable in hospital. The third was discharged after treatment.
The chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Mr Hugh Orde, who visited the scene, described it as a "motiveless, mindless, sectarian attack".
"Our job now is to find out who did it and to stop them doing it again. It is but another example of completely mindless violence."
Local SDLP Assembly member Mr Alban Maginness said: "After a short period of relative calm, loyalist paramilitaries have shattered the hopes for a more settled and peaceful north Belfast with this drive-by shooting.
"This was clearly an attack on innocent people and seriously ratchets up the loyalist campaign against the Catholic community."
Sinn Féin blamed the UDA and said it was attempting to "stoke up sectarian tensions".
Northern Ireland Office minister Mr Des Browne, said: "There can be no justification for such mindless savagery. It is time for all decent people to isolate these violent so-called loyalists involved in this type of activity."
Meanwhile, a 70-year-old man is in a critical condition following a stabbing in Portadown, Co Armagh. He was found in his home at Glandore Terrace on Saturday night with multiple stab wounds. A 30-year-old man was arrested nearby and later charged. He will appear in Craigavon Magistrates Court this morning.