Pair held over policeman attack

The scene remained cordoned off on Tuesday

Police investigating the shooting of an off-duty officer in Dungannon on Monday have arrested a man and a woman.

The officer, who had just left work, was shot a number of times in an arm as he sat in his car at traffic lights.

He managed to drive back to Dungannon Police Station where he crashed into the front gates. He was taken to hospital, and is in a stable condition.

The shooting happened hours after the Real IRA admitted it shot an off-duty policeman last Thursday in Londonderry.

A spokesman for the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file police officers, urged Provisional IRA members to tell detectives if they know who carried out this latest shooting.

Information

Police Federation spokesman Terry Spence said: "Those people who were previously involved in the Provisional IRA are best placed to give information to the police about who these individuals are.

The officer crashed into the gates of Dungannon Police Station

"They know who these dissident republicans are, and if they are signed up to the peace process, it's up to them also to do something about it and come forward to the police."

Detectives are treating as attempted murder the shooting of the off-duty officer, who is in his early 30s.

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said the attack would not deter police from serving the community, and "makes all the more impressive what has been achieved by the PSNI in the last five years".

"If a small number of disenfranchised people who have been rejected by their communities wish to continue this, we will pursue them to the ends of the earth if we need to," he said.

Northern Ireland deputy first minister Martin McGuinness said anybody with information should bring it to the police.

"These people are attempting to plunge our society back into conflict," the Sinn Fein MP said.