LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland (Reuters) – Several masked people attacked a police vehicle with Molotov cocktails and other objects at a demonstration against the Good Friday peace deal in Londonderry, police said on Monday, a day before the US President Joe Biden’s visit to Belfast.
A Reuters photograph showed four young men in the predominantly Irish nationalist area of Creggan throwing Molotov cocktails at an armored police vehicle, which was engulfed in flames on one side.
The crowd dispersed shortly afterwards and police said no one was injured.
Monday marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended three decades of bloodshed in sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. There are still some sporadic episodes of violence by small groups opposed to the peace agreement.
Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency last month raised the domestic terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland to severe – meaning an attack is highly likely.
The level is in the second highest category since its introduction in 2010, and was raised after an off-duty police officer was seriously injured following a gun attack by the new IRA, one of the small breakaway militant groups.
Biden is due to arrive in Belfast on Tuesday and deliver a speech at a Belfast university on Wednesday before traveling to Ireland for another three days.
(Reporting by Clodagh Kilcoyne)
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