Cars torched in Belfast clashes

Burned vehicles litter the Protestant Sandy Row area

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Security forces fired plastic bullets after coming under attack with bricks, bottles, petrol and blast bombs in a Protestant district of Belfast, Northern Irish police said.

The violence broke out on Sunday evening in the Sandy Row area, a Protestant neighbourhood close to Belfast city centre and followed violence on a smaller scale during the previous night.

A police spokeswoman told Reuters the trouble started when a minibus was hijacked and set on fire. Several other vehicles were also torched.

"Soldiers were deployed with police to contain the situation. They came under attack by a crowd of around 75 who threw bricks, bottles, petrol bombs and blast bombs. There were also report of shots being fired," she said.

"Two people have been arrested and baton rounds were fired during the disturbances."

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In the early hours of Sunday four police officers were injured when violence erupted in nearby Bradbury Place, a centre of Belfast nightspots.

The weekend clashes were the latest in a wave of violence which has helped undermine faith in the province's Good Friday peace agreement.

Last week British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned rival loyalist and nationalist paramilitaries in a House of Commons statement to reject violence and adhere to cease-fire agreements laid down in the 1998 peace deal.

But he fell short of adopting demands by the pro-British Ulster Unionist Party (UUP that Sinn Fein, political allies of the IRA, face sanctions or a ban from the region's power-sharing government, the Stormont Assembly.

Both Catholics and Protestants reacted unenthusiastically to Blair's remarks.

Sinn Fein said the government was placing too much emphasis on IRA cease-fire violations at a time when Protestant paramilitaries were carrying out some of the most high-profile attacks.