Suspected Irish Republican Army (IRA) dissidents who opened fire on British soldiers and pizza delivery men outside an army base shot their victims again as they lay wounded on the ground, police said yesterday.
Two soldiers died and four other people, including two men delivering pizzas, remained hospitalized with serious wounds following Saturday night’s attack at the entrance to Massereene army barracks in Antrim, west of Belfast.
It was the first killing of British soldiers 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 just as its leaders prepare to promote their coalition in the US.
Police Chief Superintendent Derek Williamson, who was leading the hunt for the killers, said a car carrying two men both armed with assault rifles opened fire on a group of four soldiers taking delivery of food from two Domino’s Pizza drivers. He said it wasn’t clear whether all six were hit at that point, but he said at least one gunman then got out of the attackers’ vehicle and shot the victims again at close range.
Williamson said the two dead men were army engineers in their early 20s who were about to be deployed to Afghanistan.
“It’s clear from what we know at this stage that the terrorists not only wanted to kill soldiers who were there last night but also tried to kill those two pizza delivery men. That indicates to me the ruthlessness of this attack,” Williamson said.
Police later found the attackers’ suspected getaway vehicle abandoned in the nearby town of Randalstown. No arrests were reported.
Politicians from both the British Protestant majority and Irish Catholic minority blamed IRA dissidents for the attack, although none of the IRA splinter groups claimed responsibility.
Both sides vowed that the attack would not undermine their 22-month-old coalition, the central accomplishment of a 1998 peace accord for the long-divided British territory following three decades of bloodshed.
“We will not be diverted from the direction which Northern Ireland has taken,” said First Minister Peter Robinson, Protestant leader of the coalition, who canceled his planned departure yesterday for a 10-day trip to the US.
He called the attack “a futile act by those who command no public support and have no prospect of success in their campaign.”
In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “The whole country is shocked and outraged at the evil cowardly attack.”
“I assure you that we will bring these murderers to justice,” he said. “No murderer will be able to derail a peace process that has the support of the people of Northern Ireland. We will step up our efforts to make the peace process one that lasts and endures.”
The Irish government in Dublin said that virtually nobody in either part of Ireland wanted to rekindle a conflict that left more than 3,700 dead.
“We had all hoped that senseless violence was a thing of the past,” Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said. “Violence has been utterly rejected by the people of this island, both north and south. A tiny group of evil people cannot, and will not, undermine the will of the people of Ireland to live in peace together.”
The gunmen’s willingness to hit delivery men suggested that dissidents were following through on recent warnings to target civilians who did business with the army. For decades the IRA reserved the right to kill anyone who worked or provided supplies for the police and army — and their list of victims included gas station managers, cooks and caterers, construction workers and building materials suppliers.
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