TWO MEN were arrested yesterday in RUC searches in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast. They are being questioned about "serious crime in the area", according to police sources.
It is understood they are being questioned about a grenade attack on an army Land-Rover on March 13th in Belfast in which a soldier sustained an arm injury, and about an armed display during a Sinn Fein parade on April 1st, also in the city.
Mr Gerry Kelly, of Sinn Fein, described the searches as "an RUC sop to unionist opinion".
Two men are being treated in hospital for broken legs, cuts and bruises after so-called "punishment" beatings in Co Down on Monday night. A number of men abducted a 25-year-old man from Langley Road in Ballynahinch and took him to a lane near St James Road in Hillsborough.
In a separate incident in Downpatrick a 26-year-old man was taken from a house Colmcille Road and beaten with sledge-hammers in a nearby car par
Mr Shane Hogg told the BBC last night that six men took him from his house, punched him to the ground and put his legs on a bin. They then began to batter his legs, one at a time.
The organisation Families Against Intimidation and Terror, has condemned both attacks.