Protestants menace streets, attack police as clash deepens

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Anti-Catholic extremists menaced the streets of Northern Ireland for a second night Tuesday, with masked youths in hard-line Protestant neighborhoods hijacking and setting vehicles on fire and police exchanging shots with gunmen in a Protestant area of Belfast.

Rage flared in the British territory, bracing for what is expected to be a week of violent Protestant revolt over British authorities' determination to restrict traditional Protestant parades in Catholic areas.

The paramilitary outlaws coordinating the mayhem from behind the scenes have warned that rioting will intensify if the Orange Order, a legal Protestant fraternal group, isn't allowed to conduct a banned march through the main Catholic district of Portadown on Sunday. Britain and the province's police commander, Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan, say that won't be allowed to happen.

Annual confrontations over Orangemen's thwarted efforts to parade down the disputed Garvaghy Road in Portadown, 30 miles southwest of Belfast, ignited widespread street violence in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Relative peace reigned last year after Orange leaders opted not to challenge a police blockade at their Portadown march's midway point, an Anglican church near the Catholic area. But history appears set to repeat itself with tensions and destruction mounting - and some of the province's most feared terrorists returning to the fore.

Politicians from all sides Tuesday criticized Johnny ''Mad Dog'' Adair, a leading Belfast member of the outlawed Ulster Defense Association who was paroled from prison this year under the terms of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary said police returned gunfire after they were fired on from an area near lower Shankhill Road, where Adair is Ulster Defense Association commander.

There were no reports of injuries.

Adair, infamous for boasting about his past slayings of Catholic civilians, led more than 100 supporters late Monday to the confrontation zone outside Portadown where police and soldiers have been blocking Orangemen from reaching the nearby Garvaghy Road.

Later, Adair and his entourage cheered at three masked men from a Portadown-based terror group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, as they fired a volley of shots into the air from handguns.

''Fellow loyalists, once again the British government and the IRA are trying to take away our God-given right to complete the march from Drumcree church,'' the lead masked figure said in a speech widely broadcast Tuesday in Northern Irish news bulletins.

''Step by step they are trying to walk over us and get us to lie down. We cannot let this happen,'' the masked figure said, concluding, ''It is up to us to defend our country. No surrender!''

Both the Ulster Defense Association and Loyalist Volunteer Force are supposed to be observing cease-fires, just like the Irish Republican Army, which draws support from the most militant Catholic areas, such as Garvaghy Road.

Monday's demonstration was the first time the two anti-Catholic groups had demonstrated such a close alliance in public, a sign that extremists were taking a more coordinated approach to this year's violence.

On Tuesday, police set up a phone hotline to advise motorists which areas to avoid. As darkness fell, Belfast's streets were largely deserted.

Protestants ran onto roads to block cars in several places. Those who didn't stop risked having their car pelted with missiles and stolen.

An Associated Press reporter accelerated past a hail of stones and bottles as he drove past a gathering of missile-wielding teen-agers and men in predominantly Protestant east Belfast. Two recently hijacked cars were already ablaze and sending plumes of black smoke into the night sky.

In Portadown, several hundred Protestants gathered near the rows of riot police and armored cars blocking the path toward Garvaghy Road fanned out into the cow pastures flanking the Anglican Drumcree church to throw firecrackers and gasoline bombs at police lines.

In response, police deployed two Belgian-designed armored cars equipped with water cannons. One doused the lead ranks of rioters, forcing them back up the hill toward the church.

Police reported that Protestant protesters had blocked key roads in at least six other towns in Northern Ireland.

Catholic protest groups led by paroled IRA members began blocking the most controversial Orange parade routes in 1995, forcing police to decide whether to confront the protesters or the marchers. In Portadown, a bastion of support for the conservative Protestant brotherhood, Orange leaders have refused to negotiate with the Garvaghy Road protesters.

Many Catholics despise Orange parades, which often feature drum-thumping ''kick the pope'' bands and commemorate Protestant victories over Catholics. More than 2,000 such parades are staged each summer, only a few dozen of which go through predominantly Catholic areas.