UK: 'New IRA' admits killing journalist Lyra McKee

By Faruk Zorlu </p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – Dissident republican group the New IRA has claimed responsibility for the killing last week of journalist Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland.</p> <p>In a statement issued early Tuesday to The Irish News, the group admitted that its activists killed the 29-year-old reporter, according to local media reports.</p> <p>“In the course of attacking the enemy, Lyra McKee was tragically killed while standing beside enemy forces,&quot; the group said in the statement. </p> <p>“The IRA offer our full and sincere apologies to the partner, family and friends of Lyra McKee for her death,” it added.</p> <p>McKee, who had been observing a police operation in the Creggan area of the city of Londonderry, was shot dead Thursday night.</p> <p>Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said the shooting happened when police were searching for munitions and firearms after tips that terror attacks were planned for the Easter weekend.</p> <p>He called McKee’s death &quot;horrendous and unjustified&quot;.</p> <p>“A single gunman fired shots in a residential area of the city and as a result wounded Ms. McKee,” Hamilton said in a statement Friday.</p> <p>“Officers quickly administered first aid before transporting her in the back of a Land Rover to hospital. Tragically, she died from her injuries.”</p> <p>Prime Minister Theresa May called the incident “shocking and truly senseless”.</p> <p> “My deepest condolences go to her family, friends and colleagues. She was a journalist who died doing her job with great courage,&quot; she wrote on Twitter.</p> <p>The border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic has been one of the thorniest issues in Brexit negotiations between the U.K. and European Union.</p> <p>A deal reached by May and EU officials has been thrice rejected by the House of Commons mainly due to the backstop clause – a measure to avoid a hard Irish border.</p> <p>Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU in a 2016 referendum, and it is feared that the Brexit process could trigger enmity in the region.</p> <p>A car bomb targeting a courthouse in Londonderry (Derry) in January was blamed by local police on the New IRA.</p> <p>The Troubles – an era of conflict between the British government and pro-British paramilitaries on one side and Irish republicans and nationalists on the other – ended in 1998 after the Belfast Agreement put an end to decades of armed struggle in the divided U.K. region of Northern Ireland.</p> <p>The U.K. and the Republic of Ireland signed the deal, brokered by the U.S. and eight political parties in Northern Ireland, on April 10, 1998.</p> <p>The deal – dubbed the Good Friday Agreement – largely saw the end of the Troubles-era violence, in which some 3,500 people lost their lives.</p> <p>Since the U.K. voted to leave the EU in 2016, tensions within Northern Ireland have steadily begun to rise as the prospects of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland threaten to unravel the fragile agreement.<br> <br>

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