by Pádraig MacDabhaid

Sinn Féin Assembly member for Upper Bann, Dr. Dara O'Hagan, is urging nationalists to remain vigilant in the wake of another loyalist pipe bomb attack.

The attack took place outside the Derryhirk Inn near Aghagallon, County Antrim, at 10.30pm on Wednesday 24 March. Bar owner Patsy Mulholland said that there were 12 people in the bar when the bomb, which was claimed by the Orange Volunteers, detonated in the car park. ``The nerves of the people inside the bar are wrecked. The window of my car was blown in and there is a hole in the road outside'', he said.

Two years ago, masked RUC members opened fire on doormen in the bar before entering and making customers and staff lie on the ground at gun point.

In a second attack in County Antrim in a week, a bomb was planted on the windowsill of a Catholic family home in Drummual Park, Randalstown, on Friday, 26 March.

The attack is being linked to the Orange Volunteers. It is widely known that the LVF in this area have been using this moniker as a cover name in order to launch attacks in the South Antrim area.

There have been more than 50 gun and bomb attacks on nationalist homes and businesses throughout the Six Counties in the last three months.

Dr. O'Hagan, speaking about the Derryhirk Inn attack, said: ``The attempt to kill the patrons of the Derryhirk Inn poses many questions, not just about this attack but indeed the attack which killed Rosemary Nelson. The fact that these so-called dissident loyalist groups continue to use their trademark crude pipe bombs adds further weight to the claims that last week's sophisticated bomb attack which killed Rosemary Nelson could not have been carried out by these loyalist groups.

``Answers can only be found with the establishment of an independent, international investigation into the Nelson killing and the exact nature of the collusion which clearly still exists between the RUC and the loyalist death squads.''

Attempt to murder family

The attack on the home of Moyle Sinn Fein Councillor James McCarry on Monday night, 29 March, was the 90th individual attack on nationalist homes and businesses since March 1998. This figure excludes the killings of the Quinn children, Rosemary Nelson, RUC man Frankie O'Reilly and the hundreds of nightly attacks on Catholic homes in the Portadown area as a result of the activities of the Orange Order relating to the Drumcree siege.

Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin said that the attack ``was deliberately aimed at James McCarry's family.

``He was not at home at the time and those who attacked the house would have known this as his car was not in its usual place.''

The attackers smashed in the living room window with a brick then hurled their bomb into a room normally used by Councillor McCarry's young children. The shrapnel from the explosion, which was sprayed across the room, would have seriously injured or possibly killed the youngsters had they been there.

This is not the first time that the McCarry home has been targeted. McLaughlin explained that ``just over a year ago an under-car booby trap device was placed under the family car. Only James McCarry's vigilance averted disaster''. McCarry himself believes that the earlier attack was carried out by the UVF and this present attack was carried out by the same organisation.

Concluding, McLaughlin urged people to remain vigilant, saying: ``These murder attempts on the McCarry family were intended to cause injury or death to anyone in the house, including James McCarry's wife and children.''

Loyalist campaign to drive Catholics from Larne

Sectarian tension is mounting in Larne, as nationalists in the County Antrim town have been targeted in a loyalist hate campaign.

Loyalists have been driving around mixed estates in Larne with loudspeakers and are naming Catholics and threatening them to leave their homes. The loyalists have also gone to local pubs and clubs and warned the owners and bar staff not to serve Catholics.

According to information An Phoblacht has received, it is mainstream loyalist paramilitaries who are involved in this latest terror campaign.

``They have been determined for some time to up the ante, and it is clearly members of the UDA and UVF who are behind it,'' said one local nationalist.