Belfast: British Prime Gordon Brown was in Northern Ireland on Monday to meet with soldiers, police and political leaders following the first deadly attack on security forces there in 12 years.
Brown planned to meet with troops at the Massereene army barracks in Antrim, west of Belfast, where two soldiers were shot dead on Saturday night, and hold talks with First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
Police said two men opened fire from a car as four soldiers — who were just hours away from being deployed to Afghanistan — met pizza delivery men at the entrance of the barracks.
All four were wounded, two fatally. The two delivery men were also wounded.
An Irish newspaper, the Sunday Tribune, said it received a claim of responsibility in a phone call from the Real IRA splinter group. The newspaper said the caller, who used a code word to verify he was authorized to speak for the outlawed gang, defended the shooting and described the delivery men as "collaborators of British rule in Ireland."
The Real IRA was responsible for the deadliest terror attack in Northern Ireland history, a 1998 car bombing of the town of Omagh that killed 29 people, mostly women and children.
Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, whose IRA-linked party represents most Catholics in Northern Ireland, criticized the dissidents.
"There is no popular support for these actions," Adams told BBC Radio 4 Monday morning.
Leaders of the territory's Catholic-Protestant administration warned that Irish Republican Army dissidents were trying to tear apart their young coalition and drag Northern Ireland back to its bloody past. The leaders postponed a U.S. trip to deal with the crisis but expect to meet with President Barack Obama on St. Patrick's Day as planned.
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