LONDON: The home of former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was attacked overnight with an explosive device, he said on Saturday as trouble flared in Northern Ireland for a seventh straight night. On the driveway of Adams´ home in west Belfast stood a damaged vehicle with a blast mark visible on the windscreen. Adams led the Irish republican party Sinn Fein from 1983 before stepping down in February this year. Rioting began last weekend in the second city of Londonderry, fuelled by dissident Irish republicans opposed to mainstream Sinn Fein´s commitment to securing a united Ireland through purely peaceful means. Gerry Kelly, Sinn Fein´s policing and justice spokesman, called the attack on Adams´ home “reprehensible and cowardly”, dismissing the violence as “the desperate acts of increasingly desperate and irrelevant groups.” But Adams called for those responsible to come forward and explain themselves. “I´d like them or their representatives to come and meet me,” he told reporters. “Explain to me what this is about. Give us the rationale for this action.” Catholic socialists, Sinn Fein was the political wing of the Irish Republican Army paramilitary group, with Adams instrumental in getting the group to give up violence in pursuit of their political aims. Northern Ireland police chief George Hamilton has blamed the so-called “New IRA” as the main group behind the rioting in Derry. “We believe violent dissident republican groups are behind this, they will use whatever excuse they can to bring about unrest,” he said. “We believe there are members of a variety of dissident groupings in this disorder — the so-called New IRA is probably the primary grouping.”