Man dies in Ulster reprisals

A former soldier was shot and killed by the IRA in the centre of Belfast yesterday as tit- for-tat violence in Northern Ireland escalated. An hour later loyalists bombed a Sinn Fein office at Belfast City Hall injuring two workmen, one seriously.

The dead man was named by police as Nigel Smith, 19, a Protestant security guard on duty at a store. Also in in Belfast, a bomb went off at the Tennant Street police station, but no one was hurt. In Londonderry city, a soldier was badly hurt in an IRA explosion at an army base.