Soldiers killed in N Ireland ambush
Two soldiers have been shot dead outside a military barracks in Northern Ireland by terrorists posing as pizza delivery men.
Four other people, at least two of them civilians, were wounded when they were hit by two bursts of automatic fire at Massereene Barracks, Antrim.
Its understood a car or van pulled up outside the main gates. Soldiers and security staff thought pizzas were being delivered and walked straight into an ambush.
Dissident republicans opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process were immediately blamed.
Ian Paisley Jr, a member of the Policing Board, said afterwards: "This could be a defining moment in the history of Northern Ireland."
The attack happened just 36 hours after Northern Ireland Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde confirmed that undercover soldiers had been called in to carry out surveillance operations on dissidents amid warnings that the threat against his officers and military personnel was at its highest for almost a decade.
Witnesses reported hearing two long bursts of gunfire as a car drove by the barracks. At least six ambulances and three paramedic vehicles rushed to the scene as emergency sirens blared from inside the complex.
The injured were taken to Antrim Area Hospital, about a mile away. The area around the barracks was sealed off and a massive security operation was under way. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Last year dissident Republicans tried to kill PSNI officers in separate incidents in Derry City and Dungannon, Co Tyrone. Last month security forces also defused a 300lb bomb in Castlewellan, Co Down, which may have been intended for an attack on a nearby barracks.
Mr Paisley, a Democratic Unionist member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said: "For the last 10 years, people believed things like this happened in foreign countries, places like Basra. Unfortunately it has returned to our doorstep."
