THE chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland has said he holds the Orange Order responsible for yesterday’s sustained rioting in Belfast, the worst in Northern Ireland for several years.

At least six police officers have been hurt and two civilian s have been seriously injured by loyalists. One man was shot in the chest and, local sources say, the bullet exited through his neck leaving him close to death.

Hugh Orde said his officers had come under attack with blast and petrol bombs, and had been shot at. He had seen members of the Orange Order engaging with masked men to attack members of the PSNI, he said.

“The Orange Order called people out onto the streets and I hold them totally responsible,” Orde said. “The army and police have returned live fire.”

The police used water cannon and fired impact rounds in response.

An Orange march had split into a number of routes in clear breach of a ruling, and this was was the responsibility of the order, according to Orde. “It was not under the control of anyone else,” he said. “I haven’t heard any politician condemn it yet and I have been listening.”

He said the trouble was organised and that petrol bombs and blast bombs “don’t appear by accident. I have miles of video footage to support everything I have said. No police service in the UK or Europe has to face this organised disorder across such a wide area”.

Soldiers and officers acted like heroes, he said. “They have responded with minimal force. It is truly world-class policing.”

The PSNI would have been in serious trouble without army back-up, Orde added. In some areas nationalists had come out and thrown missiles but Orde said that there had been no serious violence from that side.

Acting on a ruling by the Parades Commission, police had re-routed the Orange Order’s Whiterock parade through Mackies, a disused industrial complex away from the mainly nationalist Springfield Road area.

The Orange march was barred from going through security gates on the Springfield Road and redirected into the former Mackie’s factory site. Three security-force helicopters and a spy plane monitored the march from the air, while on the ground there was a huge deployment of police and troops to quell unrest. Screens were erected in front of houses.

At one point, loyalist protesters looked as if they would burst open security gates on Workman Avenue. Elsewhere a crowd of up to 100 people blocked off three lanes of traffic behind Belfast City Hall.

Some of the protesters concealed their identity from security force cameras by covering their faces with scarves or hoods. The police closed the road before the crowd moved to Shaftesbury Square.

On Isadore Avenue, which runs between Springfield Road and the West Circular Road, two military Land Rovers and a Saxon armoured personnel carrier were burnt out after sustained rioting in which fusillades of plastic bullets were fired at loyalist mobs armed with blast bombs. One civilian was seriously injured by a blast bomb in Springfield Road An eyewitness said: “I heard three bursts of automatic gunfire and saw the police and army scattering for cover. The shots came from the loyalists in the Highfield estate where the rioters were based.”

Cars and a lemonade lorry were hijacked and burnt.

In east Belfast another group of loyalist protesters came under attack from nationalist residents of Short Strand when they attempted to cut the area off by blocking the nearby Albert Bridge.

Tension was high because, on Friday night, a 29-year-old man from Short Strand was beaten and critically injured by a gang of 11 men who ran off in the direction of the mainly loyalist Ravenhill Road. The standoff around Short Strand was defused when police in riot gear forced both sides apart.

Further disorder flared across the city. Grosvenor Road was blocked by a mob who threw stones at Catholic houses and the Westlink urban motorway was also blocked for a time.

The trouble had been widely predicted. Ian Paisley, the DUP leader, had predicted that stopping the Orange march could be “the spark which kindles a fire there would be no putting out”.

He and Empey had made a last-bid attempt to have the Parades Commission reverse its decision to reroute the march.

In a statement, the Belfast County Grand Orange Lodge said that “in spite of all the risks taken”, the Orangemen were “faced with a further attempt to humiliate and suppress their culture”.

It said nationalists “exercising a cultural veto” through their “Parades Commission puppets” would not continue “without consequences”.

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