Three police officers injured by rioters throwing stones and petrol bombs in Lurgan, Co Armagh, on Tuesday night have been discharged from hospital. The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, said the riot was "deplorable" and the violence was part of an "orchestrated campaign by republicans". The presence of petrol bombs clearly indicated a degree of organisation. One of the officers was wounded in the head and was described as "seriously ill" for a time. Another officer sustained a fractured ankle, while the third officer to be hospitalised had neck and shoulder injuries. According to an RUC spokesman, 11 officers and 15 soldiers were injured in the riot which occurred at around 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
Local people said tensions had been high in the area all day as police moved in to provide protection for British army bomb-disposal experts dealing with a suspect device on the Dublin to Belfast railway line near Lurgan's nationalist Kilwilkie estate. The device turned out to be a hoax.
Mobs of youths began gathering during the operation and violence erupted when some of them threw stones and petrol bombs at the security forces. Police fired one plastic bullet round. The Belfast-Dublin line reopened yesterday after a spate of security scares in recent days. Earlier in the week, passengers travelling between the two cities had to take buses between Newry and Belfast Central station. Translink spokesman Mr Ciaran Rogan expressed relief that the service had resumed but drew attention to the economic cost of the bomb threats.
"The 33 alerts on the railway lines this year have brought services to a standstill, with cross-Border services most frequently targeted. It seems ludicrous to bring the complete service to a halt and wreak havoc with the North's economy."
Mr Trimble called on the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, to show leadership of the republican movement and put a stop to the incidents. "On the ground it is not always easy to tell the difference between mainstream republicans and dissident republicans and there is a strong suspicion that mainstream republicans have also been involved in violent acts in recent days.
"That is why I think there is a particular onus on Mr Adams and his colleagues to make it clear where they stand on the Good Friday agreement, because I don't see much evidence of them in recent weeks and months trying to make it work," he told BBC Radio Ulster. The Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, said incidents such as the one in Lurgan would not succeed in wrecking the peace process.
"How in God's name do these people think that disrupting children's education, disrupting the rail service, interfering with people's lives and putting jobs at risk helps anyone in Northern Ireland? But if the attempt is to wreck the peace process they will not succeed." The DUP's general election candidate for the constituency, Mr David Simpson, said the only conclusion he could draw from the incident was that "republicans preferred bombs and security alerts to policing and safety".
British army bomb experts defused a bomb on the rail track at Finaghy, on the southern outskirts of Belfast last night, bringing a three-day security operation to an end.