Rioting Continues in N. Ireland

Crowds of Protestant hard-liners blocked key roads and rioted here for a third straight night Monday in an explosion of frustration at Northern Ireland’s peace process.

At least 50 officers were wounded over the weekend when extremists fought riot police and British troops in the worst Protestant violence in a decade. The British governor and the province’s police chief said two outlawed Protestant paramilitary groups had mounted machine-gun and grenade attacks on police.

The rampage followed British authorities’ refusal Saturday to permit the Orange Order, Northern Ireland’s major Protestant brotherhood, to parade as it usually does each year along the boundary of Catholic west Belfast.

Monday’s blockades, formed by men, women and children, caused traffic jams that lasted for hours. Adding to the chaos were troublemakers who called Belfast businesses and, pretending to be police officers, ordered them to send workers home and close early.

The riots resumed at nightfall Monday in several parts of Belfast, although the mobs were smaller, the level of destruction less severe and the intensity of violence greatly reduced from the weekend. No new injuries were reported.