Sectarian Riots Flare In Belfast

The Associated Press reports:

Hundreds of rioters threw gasoline bombs and attacked police vans in east Belfast on Tuesday as sectarian violence flared up for a second night in Northern Ireland.

The British Press Association agency said Wednesday that a photographer was shot in the leg injury and was in stable condition at Royal Victoria Hospital. The agency did not release his name.

Other journalists on the scene said a youthful gunman had shot at photographers covering Tuesday's night's violence.

Police said about 400 people were involved in unrest in the Short Strand, a small Catholic community in a predominantly Protestant area of east Belfast.

Masked and hooded youths threw bricks, bottles, fireworks and other missiles at each other, and at armoured police vehicles. Police fired more than 60 plastic bullets at the marauding youths.

Sectarian tensions typically flare in the build-up to July 12, a divisive holiday when tens of thousands of Protestants from the Orange Order brotherhood march across Northern Ireland. Last summer, more than 80 police officers were wounded during four nights of riots in Catholic districts of Belfast.