The RUC and republicans have given conflicting accounts of an incident in Silverbridge, south Armagh, in which police fired shots after a confrontation with local people.
The RUC said a joint security patrol of six British soldiers and RUC officers was passing through the village at 5.40 p.m. on Sunday when about 20 local men came out of a bar and surrounded them.
An RUC spokesman said the group began to kick and punch members of the patrol, who tried to get away but were continually assaulted. "At one point it was feared members of the patrol were in danger of being abducted by the crowd," he said.
He said two warning shots were fired towards a nearby field. The patrol then moved into the field from where it was airlifted to safety. Several members suffered cuts and bruises, he added.
Republicans and local people in Silverbridge gave a different account. They claimed members of the Royal Marines had verbally abused the men and threatened to "take a number of locals out" before they finished their tour. They said the shots fired by police had narrowly missed the crowd.
A Sinn Fein representative, Mr Jim McAllister, said someone could have been killed. A spokeswoman for the 32-County Sovereignty Movement said: "The disgraceful behaviour of British crown forces in Silverbridge and Lurgan shows there is no real peace process. The Stormont agreement has not meant an end to the harassment of nationalists."
In Lurgan, Co Armagh, police fired plastic bullets after a confrontation with about 50 residents in the nationalist Kilwilkie Estate on Sunday night. The incident followed the evacuation of a GAA club, a youth club and houses in Lake Street after a report of a suspect device outside the GAA premises.
The RUC said it fired several baton rounds after coming under petrol bomb attack. No one was injured. The device was declared an elaborate hoax. Sinn Fein accused the RUC of "heavy-handed and provocative tactics" and said it would raise the matter with the Government.
The Irish Republican Socialist Party, the INLA's political wing, said both incidents showed the RUC was committed to "the culture of gun play and violence" and must be disbanded. "We could easily have been preparing to bury nationalist civilians today," a party spokesman said.