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Police patrol attacked with grenade in West Belfast

The PSNI came under attack in West Belfast

In a sign of escalating tensions in Northern Ireland, a police car has been attacked with a suspected grenade in West Belfast.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) patrol vehicle was reportedly targeted in Milton Row in the early hours of the morning.

The PSNI has claimed the attack was intended to “kill or injure police officers”.

Chief Superintendent Jonathan Roberts of the PSNI described the attack as a “despicable act”.

“The remnants of a suspected grenade have been recovered and taken away for forensic testing”, Roberts added.

Even though no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, the BBC has predictably pointed the finger of blame at “dissident republicans”.

The term “dissident republicans” is used by the mainstream British media to denigrate militant Irish Republican factions opposed to the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998.

The latest attack on the PSNI comes against the backdrop of escalating tensions in Northern Ireland, driven by a local political crisis and Brexit uncertainty.

Irish nationalists, of all stripes, have been mobilizing in recent months to demand an Irish Unity referendum in the wake of Brexit.  

In the latest political development, the leader of the main Irish Republican group, Sinn Féin, called for a referendum on Irish unity “over the next five years”.

Speaking to around 1,500 delegates in the Millennium Forum in Londonderry on November 16, Mary Lou McDonald also called for the restoration of power-sharing arrangements in the Northern Ireland Assembly (Stormont). 


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