UK News 06-09-2001 Pipe Bomb Attack On Schoolgirls who: Red Hand Defenders what: Claim responsibility for bomb hurled at schoolgirls where: BELFAST when: Yesterday snippet: "A pipe bomb dragged Ulster`s school `gauntlet of hate` to a savage new low yesterday," says The Mirror. "The shrapnel device exploded 50 yards from Catholic primary schoolgirls as they were escorted to lessons through a baying mob of loyalists." "Young children have been subjected to appalling attacks," said Northern Ireland secretary Dr John Reid yesterday, cutting short his holiday to help deal with the crisis. He said the threats against the young girls of Holy Cross School exposed the "shameful side of our society," insisting that "any legitimate grievances of protesters have been drowned out by this violent sectarian bigotry." Three men were arrested over the attack, which injured two policemen, says John Murray-Brown in The Financial Times. "None of the children was hurt. The attack was later claimed by the Red Hand Defenders." "Even seasoned observers have been shocked by the latest outbursts of sectarian hatred," says David McKittrick in The Independent, "not just because of their ferocity, but because the territorial issues at stake seem so petty. Yet there is an obscure logic to north Belfast`s savage turf wars." The Catholic population of the Ardoyne is "expanding, brash, assertive and demanding its rights," says McKittrick. "This helps to explain why many Catholic parents now insist that their daughters should go to their school by the front door" rather than the side entrance which would show that they were "accepting second-class citizenship." [... more]

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