1 Killed, 1 Wounded in Belfast Gun Attacks as Protestant Marching Tension

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB5Z5Y11BE.html

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) - Two gun attacks in Belfast left one man dead and another critically wounded Monday on the eve of Northern Ireland's tensest day of the year - the divisive "Twelfth" holiday of mass Protestant marches.

Although no group claimed responsibility, police and politicians blamed feuding between two outlawed Protestant groups - the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Loyalist Volunteer Force - for the bloodshed. Both groups run competing criminal rackets, including drug trafficking.

Three attackers broke into the home of a 19-year-old man and shot him to death at close range about 1:30 a.m. Earlier, a man in his 20s was shot repeatedly in the chest and arms but survived.

Detectives searching for forensic evidence closed down part of the Crumlin Road, a major thoroughfare of north Belfast, for several hours.

Who would Christ shoot? Ah yes, the religion of peace.

[two gun sid]

1. Just wait until tommorrow...

when the Orangeman march through the Ardoyne. The Peace Process needs to be put back ontrack now.

[brentspeak]

2. Neither Britain nor Ireland want to deal with N.Ireland

Britain would probably love to hand off N.Ireland to the Irish Republic, but Dublin isn't accepting (wise move).

[Beaver Tail]

3. Not to demean this because killing is WRONG

but to hear the names Ulster Volunteer Force and the Loyalist Volunteer Force reminds me of Monty Python and The Life of Brian where they make fun of people who blindlessly follow a religion or religious figure.

"Are you the Judean People's Liberation Front?"
"No, we are the People's Liberation Front of Judea"

Makes me sick

[Roland99]

4. Hatfields and McCoys with a religious twist.

[MindPilot]

5. Imagine if there were no religion...

What in god's name would people have to fight over?

I swear every day I'm more and more proud to be one of the smart, the few, the atheist.

[Rambis]

6. Overpopulation

So far religious war has been one way we are holding our numbers down. Thank god?

[11cents]

7. They appear to be fighting over money

One "Protestant" paramilitary attacks another. They're all just criminal gangs, as is the IRA now. That's the problem with tolerating "men of violence" in your midst -- they don't go away when the great bigass sacred cause does.

[Bridget Burke]

9. No, the IRA is well on the way to becoming a Fraternal Group!

LONDON, June 28 (UPI) -- The IRA can change into an organization that rejects violence and threats of violence, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

Speaking with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern after talks Monday in London, Blair called on the paramilitary group to move into a "different frame, a different modus operandi where it is no longer posing a threat of violence or violence itself."

Earlier this month Ahern suggested IRA parades and old boys' reunions could be tolerated, provided the group halted all paramilitary activity.

www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20050628-09100400-bc-britain-ira.xml

If Tony Blair & Bertie Ahern say so, it must be true. Some of the splinter groups haven't gotten the message yet.

Neither has Reverand Paisley--but he won't be around forever.

[Bridget Burke]

8. The killings involved two Loyalist/Unionist groups....

Both nominally "Protestant."

In the past, quite a few splinter groups of the IRA have murdered each other.