MICHELE NORRIS, Host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: As NPR's Philip Reeves reports, the last two nights have brought the worst street clashes the city has seen in a decade.</s>PHILIP REEVES: Masked youths throw fireworks, bricks and gasoline bombs.</s>PHILIP REEVES: But after the peace agreement of 1998, violence like this became a rarity.</s>PHILIP REEVES: Photographer Peter Muhley was there.</s>PETER MUHLEY: And I looked back and there was somebody peering over the wall and he shot about, I would say, five or six rounds. And we all were - we were all just running. Next thing I know, a colleague of mine, he yells: I've been shot, I've been shot.</s>PHILIP REEVES: Michael Doherty is director of Northern Ireland's Peace and Reconciliation Group.</s>MICHAEL DOHERTY: I think they're a group of Ulster Volunteer Force members who are saying that the dividend, that the peace dividend hasn't come their way.</s>PHILIP REEVES: But they are still causing considerable concern, says Assistant Chief Constable of Northern Ireland Police, Alistair Finlay.</s>ALISTAIR FINLAY: This is a bad thing for the community. It's a bad thing for Northern Ireland. We need to listen and hear what the issues are and bring an end to this needless violence - this violence which has put lives at risk.</s>PHILIP REEVES: Philip Reeves, NPR News, London.
Belfast boiled over in a second night of sectarian violence, with youth hurling bricks, bottles and gasoline bombs. The unrest centered in Short Strand, a small Catholic community in a predominantly Protestant area of east Belfast. Police said about 400 people were involved. Violence tends to flare up before July 12, a divisive sectarian holiday.