LONDON — A senior Northern Eire police officer is in crucial however steady situation in a hospital after being shot by two masked males whereas he coached kids’s soccer, authorities mentioned Thursday.

A dissident Irish Republican Military splinter group is suspected of taking pictures the detective Wednesday evening at a sports activities complicated in Omagh, about 60 miles (practically 100 kilometers) west of Belfast.

The Police Service of Northern Eire named the wounded officer as Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell, a widely known officer who has led investigations into murders, organized crime and dissident paramilitary teams.

Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan mentioned Caldwell was attacked by two gunmen as he put soccer balls into the trunk of his automobile, accompanied by his younger son.

“The investigation is at an early stage, we’re preserving an open thoughts. There are a number of strands to that investigation,” McEwan advised BBC Radio Ulster.

“The first focus is on violent dissident republicans and inside that there’s a main focus as nicely on New IRA.”

Politicians from throughout Eire’s political divide, and the leaders of the U.Okay. and Eire, condemned the assault.

The leaders of the 5 greatest events, together with Irish nationalists Sinn Fein — which was allied with the IRA throughout Northern Eire’s many years of Catholic-Protestant violence — and the Democratic Unionist Get together, issued a uncommon joint assertion to sentence the violence.

“We converse for the overwhelming majority of individuals proper throughout our group who’re outraged and sickened by this reprehensible and callous tried homicide,” they mentioned.

“There may be completely no tolerance for such assaults by the enemies of our peace.”

Greater than 3,000 folks have been killed throughout three many years of violence in Northern Eire involving Irish republican and British loyalist paramilitaries and U.Okay. safety forces.

The 1998 Good Friday peace accord largely ended the battle, often known as “the Troubles.” Main Catholic and Protestant paramilitary teams gave up violence and disarmed, however small IRA splinter teams proceed to mount sporadic assaults on safety forces.

In November, a do-it-yourself bomb exploded beneath a police automobile within the city of Strabane. The 2 officers inside escaped harm.

In April 2019, journalist Lyra McKee was shot lifeless whereas reporting on rioting in Londonderry, often known as Derry. The New IRA mentioned considered one of its gunmen hit her accidentally whereas concentrating on police.

The final deadly assault on a police officer in Northern Eire was the April 2011 killing of Constable Ronan Kerr, who died when a booby-trap bomb exploded beneath his automobile in Omagh.

Omagh was additionally the location of Northern Eire’s deadliest assault, an August 1998 automobile bombing that killed 29 folks. A dissident republican group referred to as the Actual IRA claimed accountability for that assault.