Irish republicans have said they "stand united" with unionists in condemnation of the shooting of a police officer by suspected IRA splinter group gunmen.
Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle O'Neill, head of the party's bloc in the Stormont home-rule assembly, spoke alongside leaders of the four other main parties and Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Simon Byrne on Friday.
Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell was shot and seriously injured outside a sports centre in the town of Omagh on Wednesday evening in front of his son and other children from a football team he was coaching.
"It is so important in moments like this that we stand united," O'Neill said. "And we do stand here united as one voice in our condemnation against this horrific attack on a police officer, someone who is part of our community."
"I think the most powerful message we can send is to stand with the chief constable today and to stand with the police service and to say 'this is not good enough'," she added. "This is an attack on all of us, this is an attack on our community."
Also present were Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Doug Beattie, republican Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood and 'cross-community' Alliance party leader Stephen Farry.
"I would say to the evil people who carried out this heinous attack and their organisation: You are not the future of this place. We stand against you," Donaldson asserted, adding that the DUP would work with other parties to ensure the PSNI had the resources "to carry out its job effectively."
"Today, all five parties of Northern Ireland [are] standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the chief constable and, indeed, all of the brave men and women of the PSNI," Farry observed.
Beattie called the shooting an "attack on our community and attack on our hard-won peace," while Eastwood insisted the culprits would "achieve nothing."
The PSNI announced it had arrested three men on Thursday morning, while a fourth was nabbed early on Friday. The force said the "focus" of the investigation was the New IRA, a split from the Irish Republican Army — Sinn Fein's armed wing — which rejected the 1999 Good Friday Agreement to end three decades of sectarian terrorism.
The New IRA admitted responsibility for the 2019 murder of blogger Lyra McKee as she covered a riot in the Creggan area of Derry.
The Real IRA, another splinter group opposed to the peace process, was responsible for the 1998 Omagh car bombing that killed 29 people and injured up to 300 others. The dead included 18 Catholics, including two Spanish tourists, 10 protestants, children, teenagers and a woman pregnant with twins.