By last night at least 11 civilians had been killed on the streets of Belfast. They included a Roman Catholic priest, two women, and a boy of 15. At Claudy, near the border with the Irish Republic, a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment died in an ambush. At Armagh, a civilian died in hospital after a gun battle between troops and a passing car. Many more civilians and troops were injured by gunfire and shrapnel in Belfast and Londonderry. A statement issued on behalf of the Commander, Land Forces, Major-General Robert Ford, said: ╥Since early this morning the security forces have been engaged in a constant war of attrition against terrorists armed with automatic weapons and petrol and gelignite bombs.╙
Property damage has been immense with huge fires consuming acres of buildings in the two major cities of the province as well as in the provincial towns. A ╥vicious╙ gun battle raged on the Roman Catholic New Barnsley estate in Belfast after terrorists ambushed a joint army-police post. A gunman and a woman were killed. A Roman Catholic priest who went to give the last rites to the gunman was himself caught in crossfire and killed. Another woman died after being shot in Velsheds Park, one of the Protestant streets set on fire in the Ardoyne district.
There was a concerted machine gun attack at about 10 p.m. on an army tactical headquarters in a converted church hall on the Ballymurphy estate. It is believed that three civilians were killed by army snipers replying to the gunfire.
All day the Catholic people of Belfast have been erecting great impenetrable barricades around their ghetto slums, in a hopeless, last-ditch effort to stop soldiers carrying away the men they hope to intern. The prospect of several days more of vicious disturbances, in which many more people will die, seemed almost certain as dusk fell over the smoking, frightened city last night.
Already soldiers and police report that more than 300 men have been rounded up in a series of early morning raids throughout the six counties of Northern Ireland.
Several politicians and civil rights leaders are among this number and many are expected to be served with formal internment orders today, removing them from society without limit or proper redress and locking them away in specially secured prisons.
Mr Faulkner╒s announcement reintroducing the long-dormant internment regulation has been coupled with an absolute ban on all parades to be held throughout the province until February next year.
The first victim of this ban will be the parade due to be held by 10,000 Apprentice Boys in Londonderry on Thursday, and although the movement╒s leadership accepted the ban there is a very real fear that many militant Protestants will stage some form of celebration in the city, with more rioting almost inevitable.
The first man to die was shot in Jamaica Street, in the Ardoyne, soon after a soldier had been shot and killed in the same area during the rioting which began on Sunday night. He was named as Mr Patrick McAdory, aged 25, of Brompton Park, in the Ardoyne, and an army spokesman said he had been killed by a soldier.
