A detective is shot in Northern Ireland and the police point to a New IRA attack

The newspapers of omagh, in Northern Ireland, open this Thursday with news from another time. He Inspector John Caldwellone of the highest-ranking detectives in the country, was shot on wednesday night, when he was leaving coaching a youth soccer team. The two attackers did not care that he was in front of his little son. Caldwell is hospitalized in critical statebut the Irish police think it is an attack perpetrated by the New IRA.

The alleged New IRA terrorists waited, as was the case in the days of Michael Collins, to Caldwell being off duty to shoot him multiple times. Once on the ground the gunmen kept firingsaid Assistant Police Chief Mark McEwan. The intensity of the shooting was such that several vehicles were also hit while other parents and children who were coming out of training were looking for a refuge from the bullets.

“We are open to various possibilities, research has multiple aspects. The main target is violent republican dissidents and, within them, the New IRA,” McEwan told BBC Northern Ireland. For his part, Northern Ireland Police Chief Simon Byrne has confirmed that the two alleged attackers and another man have been arrested.

[Bruselas lanza un arsenal de acciones legales contra Londres por saltarse el acuerdo del Brexit]

Although the investigation is not closed, the truth is that Caldwell had led several important investigations on dissident Republican terrorism and had received several threats in the past for these works. Caldwell also often spoke to the media to explain the findings of the cases.

In addition, the car of the suspects was found burned outside Omaghscene of the worst attack in the “trouble” of Northern Ireland, when nationalist militants they killed 29 people by detonating a car bomb on a busy shopping street in 1998, four months after the peace agreement.

Although that agreement largely put an end to three decades of violence in Northern Irelandpolice officers continue to be sporadically targeted by splinter groups of militant, mostly Irish, nationalist militants opposed to British rule over the region.

After a 2022 where the threat level in Northern Ireland was reduced For the first time in more than a decade, this attack is part of a context of negotiations between the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunakthe Democratic Unionists (DUP) of Northern Ireland and the European Union on the Northern Irish Protocol and the British sovereignty of Northern Ireland after Brexit.

Chris Heaton-Harris, Britain’s minister for Northern Ireland, described the shooting as serious and significant: “It’s a really significant event. It is a very serious event“He said. “It has been a cowardly and insensitive attack (…) Our thoughts are with him and his family.”

The New IRA

The New IRA is a small militant nationalist group opposed to the UK-Ireland peace deal that has attacked police before and was responsible for the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in 2019.

The last time a police officer was shot in Northern Ireland was in 2017. Last year, the threat from insider groups downgraded from “serious” to “substantial”, according to an independent assessment by internal spy service MI5. Police then declared that operations against nationalist militants were making attacks less likely.

[¿Quién mató a Michael Collins? 100 años del asesinato sin resolver del líder del IRA original]

“Unfortunately, this is a stark reminder to our colleagues that 25 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreementpolice work in Northern Ireland remains a very dangerous and carries extreme risk“Northern Ireland Police Federation Chairman Liam Kelly said.

“Clearly these people have looked into what John was doing and taken advantage of the fact that he is there volunteering with the youth and used that forum to basically try to murder him. It’s absolutely barbaric“, he added.