The PSNI has said a number of security alerts in Derry and Belfast have ended and residents who had to leave their homes have been allowed to return.
This afternoon, a 50-year-old man arrested by detectives investigating the explosion at Bishop Street in Derry last Saturday, 19 January, was released unconditionally.
Four other men arrested as part of the investigation were also released unconditionally.
The PSNI said that three significant security alerts in Derry yesterday, which came in the wake of the car bombing outside a courthouse at the weekend, were "deliberate and anti-community" hoaxes.
Residents were forced to leave their homes in the vicinity of the incidents, two of which involved masked men hijacking vehicles, while bomb disposal experts carried out checks.
The alerts ratcheted up tensions already running high in the city following a car bombing on Saturday that police believe was carried out by dissident republicans.
In the first scare three men reportedly hijacked a white transit van in the Circular Road area at around 11.30am before throwing an object in the back and abandoning the vehicle.
Army bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion on the van.
Just over two hours later, at 1.45pm, police received a report that four masked men, one allegedly armed with a gun, had hijacked a postal delivery van on Southway.
Police said the two occupants of the van were ordered to drive to Lonemoor Road and leave it there.
The third incident saw another abandoned vehicle in the city cause panic last night.
Police attended also Northland Road after a supermarket delivery van was left parked across the road, stopping traffic in front of a secondary school.
Elderly residents were evacuated from their homes in pyjamas as police attempted to secure the area.
It comes after a dissident republican group styling itself as the New IRA was blamed for the bombing outside a courthouse on Bishop Street on Saturday.
Four men arrested over the blast were released unconditionally yesterday, while a 50-year-old man remains in custody.
In Belfast, the PSNI responded to a number of incidents last night following the discovery of suspicious objects.
A controlled explosion was carried out on a suspicious object in North Belfast and local residents were allowed to return their homes around 12.30am after earlier being evacuated.
Additional reporting PA
