"Murder madness' in Belfast

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 13

"Murder madness' in Belfast

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) BELFAST, December 7. A terrorist’s rocket hit an armoured car in Belfast late yesterday, wounding 11 British soldiers, one of whom lost an arm.

The rocket, believed to have been one of the I.R.A.’s Russian-made RPG7s, hit the Army vehicle in a crowded street in the Roman Catholic Lower Falls area.

In the Ballymurphy district, three more soldiers were wounded, one seriously, when a patrol was fired on by snipers apparently lodged in a Roman Catholic Church. The attacks came about the same time as the 25-year-old wife of a Protestant reserve policeman in the city was being beaten outside her home by a gang of men. Twenty-eight stitches were necessary to close her severe head wounds. The British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr William Whitelaw) has now created a special task force of soldiers and policemen in a bid to stamp out the wave of murders which have contributed more than 100 fatalities to Ulster’s death toll of 655 in three years of strife.

Mr Whitelaw referred to “murder madness” yesterday after the body of the latest victim, a Protestant, aged 32, had been found in Belfast. Across the border, in the Irish Republic, voters are

taking part in a referendum today to decide on two constitutional changes. One would lower the voting age from 21 to 18, and the other would end the Roman Catholic Church’s special position in Irish affairs.