Three arrests over Northern Ireland soldiers' killings

Three men were arrested yesterday over the killing of two British soldiers in Northern Ireland which has triggered fears of a return to the sectarian violence of the past, police said.

The men, aged 21, 32 and 41, were being questioned by police over the shooting of the soldiers at Massereene Barracks in Antrim, northwest of Belfast, yesterday week.

According to a police source, one of the three was former Irish Republican Army (IRA) man Colin Duffy, who has distanced himself from the Republican Sinn Fein since it agreed to share power with pro-London unionists.

The arrests were made in the Lurgan area southwest of Belfast and Bellaghy, northwest of the provincial capital.

The Real IRA, a dissident republican group, claimed responsibility for the attack which killed sappers Mark Quinsey, 23, and Cengiz 'Patrick' Azimkar, 21, in the first such killings for over a decade.

CCTV footage of the attack - in which four people were also injured in a hail of bullets, when the soldiers stepped outside the barracks to receive a pizza delivery - has helped detectives hunting the killers.

Three men were already being questioned over the killing of a policeman in N. Ireland last Monday, an attack claimed by another republican splinter group, the Continuity IRA.

The three killings sparked fears of a return to violence a decade after peace accords ended the so-called Troubles that scarred Northern Ireland for 30 years, leaving over 3,500 people dead.

Pro-London Protestant unionists and Catholic Republicans - who want N. Ireland united with the neighbouring Republic of Ireland - struck a landmark deal in 2007 to share power in Belfast.

The Continuity IRA and the Real IRA are both splinter groups of the IRA, which was the military wing of Catholic socialists Sinn Fein, now sharing power with the Democratic Unionists.

The Real IRA was behind N. Ireland's most deadly attack, the 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 people.

A memorial service for the two British soldiers - who were killed just hours before they were due to leave for service in Afghanistan - was held last Thursday, while the policeman Stephen Carroll was buried on Friday.