Two men, suspected of being IRA gunmen, were arrested in the killing of a postman in Northern Ireland on Thursday, the first slaying linked to the IRA since it declared a truce Sept. 1.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which cast a pall over prospects for peace in the British province, riven by political and sectarian strife for a quarter century.The Irish government canceled just-announced plans to release Irish Republican Army prisoners, signaling the strong belief by both the Irish and British governments that the IRA was responsible.
There was no immediate reaction from the British government or from Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally. The two sides are expected to begin talks soon in hopes of finding a political solution to Northern Ireland's turmoil.
Northern Ireland police said two prominent IRA members were arrested after gunmen fatally shot a 54-year-old postman in the head and back in the border town of Newry, 30 miles south of Belfast.
Police did not immediately identify the victim, but local media reports said he was a Catholic who had worked in the predominantly Catholic town's main post office for 30 years.
The killing was the first linked to the IRA since its truce and the first in Northern Ireland since Sept. 1, when a pro-British group killed a Catholic man in north Belfast as the IRA cease-fire began. The loyalists declared their own open-ended truce Oct. 13.
An Irish radio reporter interviewing Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, said Adams stiffened when told of the shooting and arrests.
"Sinn Fein are in a state of shock, given the significance of the prison issue here," journalist David Davin-Power said.
The two men were arrested in the village of Meigh, where a post office van stolen after the shooting had been abandoned.