Britain is sending 1,000 more troops to Northern Ireland to quell the worst street violence in a decade, ignited when police halted a Protestant march through a Catholic enclave.
Angered by police resolve to prevent the march, gangs of Protestant youths attacked officers with gasoline bombs and rocks, set fire to vehicles and blocked streets with burning barricades Tuesday night and early Wednesday.As the violence, which began Sunday, escalated sharply Tuesday across much of the province, the British Army announced it was bolstering its troops level to 18,500, the most since 1982.
The army said the 1,000 new troops were expected to arrive in the British-ruled province by the end of the week.
The melee left talks on the future of Northern Ireland in tatters. Britain and Ireland last month banned the Irish Republican Army's political ally, Sinn Fein, from peace talks over the IRA's refusal to renew the cease-fire it broke in February with a bomb in London that killed two people.
On Monday, Northern Ireland's Protestant political parties announced they were boycotting the talks during the standoff.
Protestant hard-liners have threatened to bring Northern Ireland to a standstill if police don't let them march, which they say is their historic right.
Prime Minister John Major said Wednesday in London that police will seek to ensure order.
"But I hope over the next couple of days, anyone with any influence will use that influence to encourage communities to talk at local level and to bring this present impasse to an end," Major said.
Police in Belfast said Wednesday that 86 people have been injured - 49 of them police - throughout the province since the Protestant violence began. Police said there were more than 170 attacks on officers and that 87 people have been arrested for rioting.
The flashpoint of the protest is Portadown, 25 miles southwest of Belfast.
Members and supporters of the Orange Order, the province's dominant Protestant fraternal group that marches each summer in commemoration of 17th century victories over Catholics, massed there Sunday along Garvaghy Road, a Catholic area in the predominantly Protestant town.
Violence erupted when police blocked marchers a half-mile from Garvaghy Road, fearing Catholic riots if they didn't.
Tuesday night and early Wednesday, part of a Belfast school was gutted by fire, the home of a Catholic family was attacked with gasoline bombs in north Belfast and gunfire was heard coming from a nearby Protestant district. Police reported looting from stores and arson attacks on auto showrooms by Protestant gangs.