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| Pipe bomb thrown at police base | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| About 40 families have been moved from their homes after a pipe bomb was thrown at a Belfast police station. | |
| The device was thrown at the back of Old Park police station causing damage to fencing at the perimeter wall. There were no reports of any injuries. | |
| Army bomb experts are at the scene and the area has been cordoned off. | Army bomb experts are at the scene and the area has been cordoned off. |
| Chief Superintendent Mark Purdon condemned the attack and said people do "not want to pulled back into a past they want to leave behind". | |
| "Apart from the obvious dangers posed by a pipe-bomb type device, it also seriously disrupts and inconveniences the lives of local residents," he said. | |
| "Old people and young children have had to leave their homes because of this attack which is absolutely unacceptable." | |
| He appealed for help from the community to catch those behind the attack. | |
| The SDLP assembly member for North Belfast, Alban Maginness, said he believed it was an attack by dissident republicans. | The SDLP assembly member for North Belfast, Alban Maginness, said he believed it was an attack by dissident republicans. |
| "It is clearly part and parcel of a dissident republican campaign to exacerbate tension in the community and to destabilise the political situation even further," he added. | "It is clearly part and parcel of a dissident republican campaign to exacerbate tension in the community and to destabilise the political situation even further," he added. |
| The area's MP, Nigel Dodds of the DUP, said it was further evidence that there is a "ruthless and fanatical dissident republican element" in north Belfast. | The area's MP, Nigel Dodds of the DUP, said it was further evidence that there is a "ruthless and fanatical dissident republican element" in north Belfast. |
| Dissident republicans were also blamed for a similar attack in north Belfast in October when a small bomb was thrown into a Territorial Army base in Ashfield Crescent . | Dissident republicans were also blamed for a similar attack in north Belfast in October when a small bomb was thrown into a Territorial Army base in Ashfield Crescent . |