Pipe bombers have targeted the homes of two prison officers in Belfast.
Amid heightening tensions inside Northern Ireland's prison regime over paramilitary inmates segregation demands, explosive devices were left at separate houses in the east of the city.
No one was injured in the attacks - linked to loyalist paramilitaries - but security sources revealed a pipe bomb left at one of the addresses on Bloomfield Road was unwittingly lifted by a woman and put in a wheelie bin.
"She had no idea what it was and it was only when an anonymous telephone call was made to a hospital to say a device had been planted there that the army was called in," said one security source.
A second attack was made against a home on the Holywood Road at the weekend.
It is understood both officers have retired from the Prison Service, which has refused to buckle under a so-called dirty protest by dissident republican inmates at Maghaberry Jail, Co Antrim, who are seeking to be separated from loyalists.
Prisoners affiliated to the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force have also demanded total segregation.
But a senior member of the UDA-affiliated Ulster Political Research Group denied the paramilitary organisation had any involvement in the pipe bomb attacks.
East Belfast representative Mr Frankie Gallagher said: "The UDA had nothing whatsoever to do with this".
Prison Service sources later claimed the attacks were unlikely to be linked tothe dirty protest at Maghaberry.
One said: "A pretty bad bunch of loyalists have moved into that area and havetargeted warders, but it has been going on for longer than this latest protest."I don't think it has anything to do with what's happening at Maghaberry."
Regardless of the motive, an Alliance Party councillor for East Belfast hitout at the bombers.
Ms Naomi Long said: "Like everyone else, prison officers have a job to do andshould be able to live in peace.
"It is only luck that has prevented someone being hurt already. I wouldtotally condemn these attacks, which should end immediately."
PA