Two houses have been targeted in separate nail-bomb attacks in north and east Belfast.
A man, his wife and their 19-year-old daughter escaped uninjured after a nail-bomb was thrown at their house in the Deerpark Road area, in the north of the city, shortly after midnight yesterday.
Mr Frank Woodside said he ran downstairs after hearing a bang in his front garden. The family looked out the window to see their front garden littered with nails.
The device did not cause any damage to the house, but nails, bolts and pieces of the device were removed by the RUC for forensic examination.
The family did not believe they were personally targeted but that the device was designed to stir up community tensions.
A local Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Eoin O'Broin, claimed the attack bore all the hallmarks of a loyalist attack.
The RUC said it could not confirm whether loyalists or republicans had been responsible for the device.
In east Belfast, a nail-bomb was left on the window sill of an unoccupied house on the Upper Newtownards Road.
The device exploded, causing scorch damage.
Meanwhile, the house of a west Belfast SDLP councillor, Ms Margaret Walsh, has come under paint-bomb attack for the second time in eight days.
Ms Walsh said she saw three men sitting in a car near her Barrack Street home before the attack.
The family had only repaired the damage caused by last week's paint-bomb, and her four children were extremely distressed, she added.
The SDLP MLA for the area, Mr Alex Attwood, condemned the attack as "disturbing and distressing".
A house in nearby Bombay Street was attacked with bricks and, according to Sinn Fein, petrol-bombs.
An SDLP councillor, Mr Fra McCann, said it was the symbolic significance of Bombay Street which seemed to stir up trouble in the area.
"We are approaching the anniversary of the burning of Bombay Street by the RUC and loyalist mobs and the residents are obviously fearful of future attacks," he added.
A number of stone-throwing incidents also occurred in the Greencastle area on the outskirts of north Belfast.