Two held after suspected hit foiled

UNARMED gardaí foiled a suspected gangland hit after smashing into an assassin’s car, grappling with the hitmen and seizing a loaded revolver.

The courageous officers grabbed the two men late on Wednesday night after their patrol car was badly rammed by the men’s stolen car.

The uniformed officers had been responding to an alert that two men had been waiting in a car outside a house in the Clonshaugh area of north Dublin. Their target was a man in his 20s living nearby. That man is the younger brother of a gangland figure gunned down in a north city pub last April. That shooting had been a reprisal for a shooting attack the year before on another inner city gang.

The latest attempted hit is linked to an ongoing north Dublin inner city feud, which has seen several deaths after escalating in the last two years.

The brave officers who foiled the gun attack, which is being linked to drugs, were called to a house at 10.20pm on Wednesday. But as they approached the men, who were in a silver-coloured Audi A5, their car was badly rammed.

The officers nonetheless blocked its escape from the road. Both gardaí then ran from their car and smashed the windows of the Audi with their batons. While wrestling with the occupants, one of whom was wearing a balaclava, gardaí saw a gun beneath a seat.

“While overpowering them, they saw it. They knew the potential there. There was little doubt that they were about to shoot someone,” said a Garda source.

The gardaí managed to tackle one of the men, an 18-year-old, arresting him. But during the struggle the other masked man, 22, managed to escape, running into a nearby back garden.

At this stage other armed and unarmed gardaí arrived from Coolock Station as well as the local Crime Task Force. The area was cordoned off and during searches the other suspect was arrested after breaking into an occupied house.

Both men were being held at Coolock Garda Station last night and can be questioned for up to 72 hours. Senior gardaí have described as “worrying” the fact that young men are being used by senior gang members for shootings. “This is tit-for-tat stuff. It is worrying when the senior guys use them at this age,” said the Garda source.

Meanwhile, gardaí arrested two young men yesterday after shots were fired through the front door of a home in Cabra in the early hours of the morning.

A man and a woman in the home on St Attracta Road, who are not known to gardaí, were uninjured during the attack.

The two men were apprehended after their silver Nissan was found crashed around the corner on Broombridge Road.

Local sources say the shotgun attack was more than likely a warning over a local feud.

Both men were last night in custody in Mounjoy and Bridewell Garda stations.