A Catholic woman whose north Belfast home was hit by blast bombers today claimed the attack was meant to kill.
Even though police are examining a possible sectarian motive, mother-of-two Sharon O'Shea, 28, did not know why she was targeted. Windows were shattered when the device was thrown at the house on Mountainview Gardens, off the Crumlin Road, early today. A car parked outside was also damaged.
Ms O'Shea, who lives there with her two young sons, needed hospital treatment for cuts after being showered with glass. But she told BBC Radio Ulster: "If it actually had come into the house I wouldn't be here. I would have been dead.
"They obviously meant business throwing it at the bedroom. There was no way for me to get out." The attack came days after rioting nationalists threw blast bombs at police during a flashpoint Orange Order parade in north Belfast.
Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist MP for the area, condemned those involved in the latest bombing. He said: "The use of blast bombs against anybody's home or anybody's property or themselves is absolutely unacceptable and deplorable.
No right-thinking person in society would countenance such a thing and nothing can justify it. "Throughout north Belfast there's a desire to see calm and restraint rather than any further violence." Pat Convery, the SDLP deputy mayor of Belfast, urged the public to shun the bombers.
"Those who indulge in such attacks need to be isolated in their community and made amenable to the justice system," he said. "That is the only way we can all live in peace in our homes." Meanwhile, sectarian thugs are also suspected of attacks on Protestant homes in the Suffolk area of west Belfast.
A front door was kicked in and another house had a window smashed early today. Two men have been arrested under suspicion of criminal damage and disorderly behaviour.