U.K. troops fight I.R.A. snipers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 13

U.K. troops fight I.R.A. snipers

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) BELFAST, February 7. British troops and snipers of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (LRA.) were locked in a shooting battle in Northern Ireland’s capital early today.

Belfast’s fifth consecutive night of violence came after a declaration of war by the Ulster Government on I.R A. gunmen determined to unite the Protestant-ruled province with the Roman Catholic-dominated Republic of Ireland.

Rioting late on Saturday evening gave way to gun battles fought with rifles and automatic weapons—as the streets cleared and troops were left to tackle the snipers. Well after midnight, heavy shooting was raging in the mixed Roman Catholic-Pro-testant Crumlin Road area. I.R.A. sharp-shooters were apparently perched in Hooker Street and Brookfield Street on the north side of the Crumlin Road, a notorious trouble spot in Belfast’s longstanding feud between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Their bullets were aimed into the Protestant-occupied

Disraeli Street on the opposite side of Crumlin Road. Army marksmen and armoured cars cordoned off the area and troops raked Flax Street—also off the Crumlin Road—after they were fired on. The Army reported two civilians hit by bullets in Flax Street but this was not immediately confirmed. There were no other reports of casualties. In earlier rioting, a crowd had hijacked a bus and burned it in the Crumlin Road area. A Roman Catholic barricade was put up briefly in the Falls Road and shots were fired as soldiers moved in to tear it down.

At Ballymurphy on Belfast’s western fringe, gangs of youngsters hurled stones and explosives at patrolling Army vehicles.

Police said that a 14-year-old boy had his hand blown ■ off when he tried to throw a i gelignite bomb at soldiers. Rioting also swelled in the i Bogside Roman Catholic enI clave of Londonderry late on Saturday as roaming gangs of i youths tossed petrol and : ammonia bombs at troops. But while a company of i soldiers held them at bay at ’ the entrance to the Bogside, another 200-strong detachI ment, forming a pincer movei ment, rushed the rioters from the rear. Thirty were arrested. An Army spokesman said that everything was quiet again shortly after midnight. As the Defence Ministry in London said that it was sending another 600 troops to Northern Ireland to boost the 7000 already there, the Ulster Prime Minister (Major James Chichester - Clark) pledged that his Government would "never surrender to tiny groups of Irish Republicans." In a statement on Saturday to the Northern Ireland people, Major ChichesterClark said that the events of the last few nights were “plainly a war with the Provisionals in Belfast.”