Investigation into whether IRA dissidents shot a Northern Irish policeman

LONDON (AP) — A Northern Ireland police officer was in a critical but stable condition in a hospital after he was shot dead by two masked men while coaching a children’s soccer team, authorities said Thursday. .

An Irish Republican Army (IRA) dissident was suspected on Wednesday night at a gym in Omah, nearly 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Belfast.

The victim was Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell, a well-known officer who has investigated murder, organized crime and dissident paramilitary groups, according to Northern Ireland Police.

Caldwell was attacked by two men as he stowed footballs in the trunk of his car with his young son, Deputy Chief of Police Mark McEwan said.

“The investigation is in an initial phase, we are keeping an open mind. There are several lines in this investigation,” McEwan told BBC Radio Ulster.

“The main focus is on dissident and violent Republicans, and within that the focus is on the New IRA.”

Politicians of all political persuasions in Ireland and British and Irish leaders condemned the attack.

More than 3,000 people have been killed in three decades of violence in Northern Ireland between Irish Republican and British Unionist paramilitaries and British security forces.

The 1998 Good Friday Peace Accords largely ended the conflict. The main Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups have renounced violence and disarmed, although small fractions of the IRA continue to carry out sporadic attacks.

Northern Ireland’s deadliest attack occurred in Omagh, where a car bomb killed 29 people in August 1998. A Republican dissident group known as the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the attack .