BELFAST – Suspected IRA dissidents opened fire on British troops and pizza delivery men outside a Northern Ireland army base, killing two soldiers and wounding four other people. Police said yesterday the attackers fired on their victims again as they lay wounded on the ground.
Saturday night’s attack at the entrance to Massereene army barracks in Antrim, west of Belfast, was the first killing of British troops in Northern Ireland since 1997. Its callousness, in targeting soldiers and civilians alike, appeared calculated to inflame community tensions and undermine Northern Ireland’s Catholic-Protestant administration.
‘The whole country is shocked and outraged at the evil and cowardly attack,’ British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in London. ‘I assure you that we will bring these murderers to justice. No murderer will be able to derail a peace process that has the support of the people of Northern Ireland.’
In Dublin, the Irish government said virtually nobody in either part of Ireland wanted to rekindle a conflict that left more than 3 700 dead. Leaders pledged greater security cooperation with British security forces in the north to catch and imprison the dissidents, who are strongest along the Irish border.
– Nampa-AP
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