The RUC Chief Constable has warned that lives will be lost if rioting continues in North Belfast. He was speaking yesterday after intense rioting on Wednesday night, during which 33 officers were injured.
Sir Ronnie Flanagan blamed sections of the loyalist UDA, officially on ceasefire, for orchestrating Wednesday's violence. Over 50 shots were fired at police, who say they were preventing a loyalist mob from attacking the Catholic Ardoyne area.
At the height of the trouble a crowd of over 600 threw 125 petrol bombs, six blast bombs, fireworks and other missiles in Cambrai Street and the Crumlin Road.
Police fired four shots after armoured vehicles were hit by two bursts of automatic gunfire.
Nine baton rounds were also discharged. A bus and several cars were hijacked and set on fire.
Sir Ronnie said last night: "The violence is crazy. People must realise these situations can only have one outcome - the loss of life."
He continued: "Guns, petrol bombs and blast bombs are not immediately to hand without paramilitary involvement.
" I have no doubt that locally there was UDA involvement in the violence we witnessed last night," Sir Ronnie said.
Speaking on the BBC, former UDA prisoner Mr Jackie McDonald accepted that the UDA had been involved in the violence.
However, he cautioned the Northern Ireland Secretary of State against commenting on the organisation's ceasefire.
"He can't just come out and say the UDA ceasefire is over - he would have to take some physical action after that and what would it be? It would just make the situation worse," he said.
The Chief Constable denied that his officers had been heavy-handed on Wednesday night.
"The public at large should ask themselves where they would be without the presence of our officers.
"I can say life would have been lost. I can say there is a real risk that if people don't grip this and bring it to an end life will be lost.
However, Progressive Unionist Party MLA Mr Billy Hutchinson blamed the RUC for causing the trouble.
He said around 100 women had been staging a peaceful protest on the Crumlin Road on Wednesday evening when they were baton charged by police.
The women were protesting against an alleged assault on a Protestant man in the nearby Brookfield Mill Business complex on Sunday evening, he said.
SDLP MLA Mr Alban Maginness claimed the rioters intended to burn down the Brookfield Mill complex.
"It was a frenzied attack on the police because the police were protecting Brookfield Mill from destruction by the mob.
"They hate anything that is perceived to be Catholic," he said.
Brookfield Business Centre, housed in a converted linen mill, employs around 1000 people. Over 60 per cent of the businesses incubated there have been from the Protestant community, according to management.
The DUP MP for North Belfast, Mr Nigel Dodds, said Protestants in north Belfast had legitimate grievances which needed to be addressed.
He added, however, that there was could be no justification for attacks on the police or anyone else.
"I think also violence must not disguise that there are underlying issues such as how the police handled the protest last night, and issues to do with the ongoing lack of protection for people in homes in Cambrai Street, who have come under attack week after week," he said.