Hijackers in Belfast attempted to steal a car with a four-year-old boy inside during unrest this week, police have confirmed.

The terrifying incident, part of an orchestrated campaign of hijackings and hoax bomb alerts across Northern Ireland, happened in the west of the city on Monday night.

It is believed a masked gang tried to take the car as it travelled on the Suffolk Road.

Fortunately the boy and his father, who had been driving the car, escaped uninjured. The hijackers then stole an Iceland van.

In another attack in west Belfast a quarry van driver was pulled from his vehicle and doused with petrol.

His vehicle was set alight on the Whiterock Road a short time later.

Sinn Fein councillor Paul Maskey said: “It is criminality. We now have car thieves jumping on the band wagon of so-called dissident republicans and what they are doing is creating mayhem within our communities.”

A separate spate of hijackings by masked men also sparked widespread disruption in Lurgan.

Community services such as Northern Ireland Electricity, Northern Ireland Water Service, Royal Mail, Amey Motorway Services and the RAC were targeted.

Three vehicles were hijacked on Tuesday, two of which were subsequently recovered.

In one incident local residents came to the aid of a postman and helped fight off an attacker.

In another attack a man is believed to have been injured after he was thrown from a vehicle.

Security alerts severely disrupted rush hour traffic in Belfast for the second night in a row.

Bomb disposal experts were called to examine two suspicious packages left on the Springfield Road near Mackey's factory and on the Falls Road between St Dominic's School and the Grosvenor Road last night.

They were later declared hoaxes.

Earlier, parents in west Belfast spoke of their anger after another day of disruption for school children.

More than 300 students from St Aidan's Primary School were sent home because of an alert on the Whiterock Road.

A suspicious package left on the road early yesterday was declared a hoax at about 10.50am.

Margaret McAllister, mother of 11-year-old Thomas, said: “It's like the old days when you had days off school yourself.

“It is a disgrace and it is a pain in the backside.

“You don't want another generation growing up with all that. This is his first experience of it all.”

Lisa McKeown, whose 11-year-old son Patrick was also forced to take the day off school, said: “I'm not at all happy, we can't go out and do anything.

“I was going to bring Mya, my daughter, out today but it's too much when both of them are off. I also was going to go the health centre.

“I have to go and see a health visitor but it's closed as well.

“It's all a load of rubbish. It was disgraceful, all that hijacking. We were too scared to go down the road.”