Related News
Two British military personnel killed in N.Ireland
Source: Agencies |
March 8, 2009, Sunday
|
Online Edition
Online Edition
Two British military personnel were killed and four people were seriously wounded in a shooting at an army base in Northern Ireland, police said yesterday.
"The two fatalities as I understand it are military personnel," a police spokeswoman said, adding that two of the wounded were also from the army.
The shooting at the Massereene base near the town of Antrim followed reports that British special forces were back in the province gathering intelligence on dissident republicans.
A 1998 peace deal ended 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which seeks a united Ireland, and pro-British Protestant guerrilla groups.
Special forces operated in Northern Ireland during the conflict, in which more than 3.000 people were killed.
British troops were stood down in the province in 2007, but sporadic violence has continued despite the peace deal.
In January, a bomb was defused in Castlewellan, a town 30 miles (50 km) south of the province's capital Belfast. A splinter republican group claimed responsibility for planting the bomb.
Nationalist politicians reacted angrily to the reports that members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, at the forefront of intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, had returned to Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland's police chief Hugh Orde said on Friday he had deployed "specialists" to help police handle dissident groups but that they were not "special forces".
"The two fatalities as I understand it are military personnel," a police spokeswoman said, adding that two of the wounded were also from the army.
The shooting at the Massereene base near the town of Antrim followed reports that British special forces were back in the province gathering intelligence on dissident republicans.
A 1998 peace deal ended 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which seeks a united Ireland, and pro-British Protestant guerrilla groups.
Special forces operated in Northern Ireland during the conflict, in which more than 3.000 people were killed.
British troops were stood down in the province in 2007, but sporadic violence has continued despite the peace deal.
In January, a bomb was defused in Castlewellan, a town 30 miles (50 km) south of the province's capital Belfast. A splinter republican group claimed responsibility for planting the bomb.
Nationalist politicians reacted angrily to the reports that members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, at the forefront of intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, had returned to Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland's police chief Hugh Orde said on Friday he had deployed "specialists" to help police handle dissident groups but that they were not "special forces".
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
