A newly-graduated Catholic police officer has escaped injury after an explosion near his car in Co Antrim today.
A PSNI spokesman said the explosion occurred in Dunclug Park, Ballymena at 2.40 p.m. He added that the area had been sealed off for technical examination.
The device was attached beneath the car, police said. Only the detonator went off, while the main charge did not explode. There was no initial claim of responsibility for the attack
Police confirmed the officer was among the first batch of recruits to the new Police Service of Northern Ireland, formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He graduated on April 5th.
"The aim of the bombers was clearly murder," said Chief Superintendent Bob Foster. "An awful lot of children were playing in the area at the time and it was a very evil act that was carried out."
"This is a very shocking incident which has to be condemned on all sides. It was a clear attempt to attack a Catholic police officer," said Mr James Leslie, local Ulster Unionist MLA.
Meanwhile, sectarian trouble flared again in east Belfast as PSNI and British army forces began to bolster their presence in the city.
Police and troops have moved into the area, where opposing gangs clashed outside a GP surgery.
Catholics in the Short Strand area claimed homes were hit by a pipe bomb and stones, while a number of elderly Protestants said their houses were attacked with missiles close to the Shankill district.
The PSNI has warned they will use water cannons to quell disturbances in the Short Strand, the worst in the city since the signing of the Belfast Agreement four years ago.
Screens are to be erected on a dividing peace wall.
At one stage today protesting loyalists blocked the neighbouring lower Newtownards Road not far from a students' college in Tower Street which closed because of fears of violence.
Police are investigating reports that masked men entered the college and tried to single out Catholic students.
Students at the further education institute say the intruders tried to identify those from a nationalist area and locked some of them in a room and forced to prove they were not from the Short Strand area.
Both sides blamed each other for today's trouble outside the surgery which is used by people from both communities.