Republicans 'plan to bus hundreds in for protests'

Belfast's most senior police officer warned last night that republicans were planning to bring hundreds of youths into the north of the city to attack the security forces as Orangemen march today.

Tens of thousands of Orange Order members will be taking to the streets for the 12 July parades which are the high point of the loyalist marching season.

In an unusual announcement clearly aimed at pre-empting trouble, Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan said violence on a major scale was planned at a protest in Ardoyne as the Orange marchers passed through.

He indicated that he believed the IRA and Sinn Fein were involved in a plan to bring large numbers of republican and nationalist youths on to the streets in Ardoyne.

One of the hundreds of "feeder" parades is due to pass close to the nationalist part of Ardoyne which has been the scene of many riots over the past year. It is known as a traditional flashpoint.

Mr McQuillan told a hastily convened news conference last night: "We have very clear information that large numbers of republican youths are being bussed into the area by republican paramilitaries and that large quantities of petrol bombs and acid bombs are being manufactured. The intention is to organise a major riot and put these people in conflict with the police and Army. This is not black propaganda."

Appealing to Sinn Fein leaders to hold a peaceful and legitimate protest, he added: "We are saying that a republican paramilitary organisation is clearly organising and is directly behind this."

Sinn Fein said Mr McQuillan's claims were "ridiculous."

Tension and apprehension rose further last night when it emerged that a Protestant man injured in a hit-and-run accident in north Belfast at the weekend had died.

He was hit by a car which was later found abandoned in the republican New Lodge area. Loyalist paramilitaries might now treat the incident as a sectarian attack and seek to retaliate for it.

A number of politicians have appealed for calm in Belfast.