Loyalists suspected of carrying out Derry shooting

Police in the North have suggested that loyalist paramilitaries may have been responsible for the attempted murder of a Catholic lorry driver in Derry yesterday morning.

The 35-year-old man narrowly escaped injury after a gunman fired several shots at him while he sat in his vehicle in Rossdowney Drive, in the mainly Protestant Waterside area of the city.

Police inspector Milton Kerr said: "It is too early at this stage to say if it was sectarian or carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, but that cannot be ruled out."

The lorry driver was preparing to leave the area yesterday morning when a gunman approached his vehicle and opened fire.

The first shot shattered the passenger window in the lorry and the driver leaned back as far as he could to avoid being hit. He heard another four or five shots being fired before the gunman walked off in the opposite direction.

Rossdowney Drive, where the driver was parked, is close to the loyalist stronghold of Lincoln Courts.

The gun attack was the second targeting of a Catholic in the Waterside area in recent times.

10 days ago, SDLP councillor Gerald Diver and his wife and four children escaped injury after a pipe bomb was thrown at their home.

That attack was blamed on the UDA.