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By Kieran McDaid
A POLICE officer was struck by a pipe bomb and 20 others were injured following clashes with loyalist protesters near the Holy Cross Girl’s Primary School yesterday.
The officer caught the force of the explosion and was rushed to hospital with a broken collar bone when troops and RUC officers held back around 200 screaming protesters.
The fresh violence erupted yesterday morning when the security forces mounted a huge operation to escort terrified Catholic children and their parents to the school.
Bricks and bottles were thrown, and at one stage garden fencing was ripped up and used to attack security forces.
Shortly before 10am, three crates of bottles, five gallons of petrol and a role of towelling were seized by police in a shed at the back of a house in the Glenbryn area.
Dozens of RUC and army Land Rovers were lined up along both sides of the Ardoyne Road and used as a protective corridor as up to 45 girls, all aged under 11, and their parents walked the 300 yards to Holy Cross school.
None of the Catholic children or parents were hurt.
At the height of yesterday’s trouble, riot squad officers stormed into a garden on the Ardoyne Road where up to 50 loyalist protesters had gathered.
Baton-wielding police fought with an angry mob who hurled rocks, fence poles and flowerpots.
The crowd was pushed back into the rear of the house as the tense situation erupted into violence.
A pipe bomb then exploded in Glenbryn Parade, and police quickly moved in to drive around 150 loyalists who had gathered there back down the road.
One police officer was injured in the explosion, while a soldier narrowly escaped injury when the butt of his rifle was destroyed.
A British army spokesman later named the soldier as Lieutenant Calum Barclay (25) of the 1st Batallion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
He said the soldier was leading a 10-man platoon when he was blown off his feet by the pipe bomb thrown by the crowd.
Earlier, there was trouble directly opposite the Holy Cross primary school, where police and troops battled with crowds of loyalists gathered at Wheatfield School.
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