A Catholic woman and her six-year-old son escaped uninjured when a pipe bomb exploded after it was put through the letterbox of their south Belfast home early yesterday. The Red Hand Defenders claimed last night that they were responsible.
An RUC spokeswoman confirmed that police were investigating a sectarian motive for the incident.
The attack came less than a month after Mrs Elizabeth O'Neill was killed when a pipe bomb was thrown through the living-room window of her home in Portadown. Police forensic experts were yesterday examining the remains of the device and the scene in Finaghy, south Belfast. The front door of the house was damaged in the blast. The occupants were asleep upstairs.
An SDLP Assembly member, Ms Carmel Hanna, spoke to the 49-year-old woman about the attack. "She is obviously very upset, and really wants the politicians to get on with talking and get an agreement," she said. The political wing of the INLA, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, yesterday condemned the attack and urged nationalists to be vigilant against further loyalist attacks.
"Last night's attack on a mother alone with her six-year-old child proves that these lunatics are prepared to continue their murderous campaign against the working class nationalist community," said the IRSP spokesman, Mr Fra Halligan.
The Sinn Fein Assembly member for north Belfast, Mr Gerry Kelly, also appealed to nationalists to be vigilant after the dissident loyalist paramilitary groups, the Red Hand Defenders and the Orange Volunteers, said they were "fully committed to a military response in defence of the loyalist people".
Mr Kelly said the threats should be "a catalyst for greater effort" from all parties in the current negotiations.