WORLD BRIEFING / NORTHERN IRELAND
Gunmen killed an officer in an attack on a Northern Ireland police patrol, authorities said, just 48 hours after Irish Republican Army dissidents claimed responsibility for shooting to death two British soldiers. The shootings fanned fears of a return to violence after years of fragile peace.
The latest killing came even as British security chiefs appealed for public help to catch the soldiers’ killers.
“We are staring into the abyss,” warned a moderate Catholic politician, Dolores Kelly, after police confirmed that the officer was fatally shot in the head while sitting in his patrol car in the religiously divided town of Craigavon.
No group claimed responsibility, but politicians blamed the Real IRA, the splinter group that took responsibility for Saturday’s fatal shooting of the soldiers.
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