Soldiers killed at army barracks in Northern Ireland
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Two soldiers have been shot dead and four other men were critically injured in an attack at an army base in Northern Ireland for which the Real IRA have claimed responsibility.
The shooting happened at around 9.40pm at the Massereene Barracks in County Antrim.
Soldiers from the base had ordered pizza from a local takeaway shop and as the delivery men arrived the soldiers walked out to collect the pizza. At this point, two shooters from a car began spraying bullets from automatic rifles killing the two men and injuring four people, including the delivery men.
Of the injured men it is believed that one is in a critical condition, two are in a serious condition and one is serious but stable.
The victims were named last week as appears Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham and Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London.
Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, said: “I supported the IRA during the conflict, I myself was a member of the IRA but that war is over,” said the Sinn Fein MP.
“Now the people responsible for [the incident] are clearly signalling that they want to resume or restart that war.”
Suggestions that the attack came as a result of the decision to deploy special forces soldiers have been played down by the man who made that decision, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde.
Sir Orde had confirmed, only days before the massacre, that undercover personnel had been deployed in the country in recent months.
It is almost eleven years since the Good Friday agreement was completed but Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the killing of the soldiers—the first since 1997—would not derail the peace process.
He said: “We will do everything in our power to make sure that Northern Ireland is safe and secure and I assure you we will bring these murderers to justice.”
Police are now examining CCTV footage of the area, and are to conduct forensic tests on an abandoned Vauxhall Cavalier TDZ 7309 which is alleged to have been used as a getaway vehicle.
