Police in Northern Ireland suspect a Republican terrorist splinter group is behind the shooting of a senior detective — as three men have been arrested.
Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell was said to be in a 'critical but stable' condition on Thursday morning after he was shot several times by two masked gunmen on Wednesday evening in Omagh, County Tyrone.
The Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) said its prime focus was on the New IRA, a dissident group which split from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) following the 1999 Good Friday peace agreement.
"The investigation is at an early stage, we are keeping an open mind. There are multiple strands to that investigation," Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan told British state media. "The primary focus is on violent dissident republicans and within that there is a primary focus as well on New IRA."
Caldwell had been coaching a children's football team at a sports centre just before the attack and was loading footballs into his car with his young son.
"There were many other young people, children, awaiting pick-up by their parents. Those children ran for cover in sheer terror towards the centre," McEwan said.
The gunmen escaped in a small black car, which was later found burnt out on the outskirts of the city.
Three Arrests Made
PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byre announced on Thursday afternoon that the force had arrested three men aged 38, 45 and 47 in connection with the shooting.
The detective had several high-profile investigations, including into the murder of pregnant woman Natalie McNally in a stabbing attack in Lurgan last December.
McEwan thanks a "brave" bystander who rushed to give Caldwell first aid, along with ambulance paramedics who helped save his life.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald called the shooting "absolutely diabolical," while deputy leader Michelle O'Neill, head of the party's group in the Stormont assembly, said it was an "outrageous and shameful attack."
"We are not going back to the bad, old days," McDonald told Irish state TV. "The only way for every community in Ireland now is forward and people have a perfect right to expect that they can move around their communities safely."
Democratic Unionist Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson condemned the "cowards responsible for this."
The attack came as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was struggling to get republicans, unionists and his own Conservative MPs to agree to a compromise deal with the European Union (EU) on changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Protocol, an annexe to the UK's post-Brexit withdrawal agreement, keeps the exclave within the EU's single market on the grounds that customs checks at the border with the Republic of Ireland would breach the Good Friday Agreement's pledge of free movement.
But the resulting barriers to goods arriving from the UK has caused unrest among the Unionist majority. Last March a speech in Belfast by Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was interrupted two gunmen hijacked a van and drove it to the venue to create a hoax bomb scare.
Irish republicans have used the crisis as an argument for their goal of reunification with the republic. The New IRA said in 2019 that it was looking to "capitalise on the opportunity" of divisions caused by Brexit.