A man claiming to represent the INLA said it carried out a gun attack on a Protestant home in Newtownbutler, Co Fermanagh. Three people escaped injury. The family said last night they could think of no motive for last Thursday's attack other than that they are Protestants.
Nine bullets were fired at the front of the house on the town's Clones Road.
A man claiming to be a spokesman for the INLA told a Monaghan-based radio station it carried out the automatic machine-gun attack. He did not give a code word to confirm the authenticity of the call.
Security sources are keeping an open mind on the motive for the attack and have not yet discounted the INLA's claim of responsibility.
The shooting took place just hours after a warning from the Catholic Reaction Force - believed to be a cover name for the INLA - that it would "take revenge" for the murder of a north Belfast Catholic on New Year's Eve, claimed by the LVF.
Three members of the Newtownbutler family were in the living-room of their home at around 8.45 pm on Thursday night when gunfire shattered the glass panel in the front door. Two bullets lodged in a staircase, while a third hit a wall at the back of the hall. Six more shots hit the outside wall of the house.
Local Ulster Unionist councillor, Mr Cecil Noble, claimed the shooting could be a further attempt by republicans to drive Protestants from border areas. He said the family could have been killed by the shots and said they were not involved in the parades controversy in Newtownbutler. "I hope this is not the beginning of another attack on the Protestant people of Newtownbutler. It would be a further disturbing situation if the INLA was involved.
"It was a dastardly act which would have killed anyone in the hallway. People up there are very afraid now because they are so vulnerable. "Over the years, republicans have tried to drive them out of their homes and ethnically cleanse the area. This could be the start of it again," Councillor Noble added.
Sinn Fein's Fermanagh-South Tyrone representative, Mr Gerry McHugh, said he was against attacks on Protestant homes and suggested loyalists might have been responsible for the attack.
He said it was "rubbish" to claim republicans are attacking Protestants. He said: "I don't know anything about the attack and cannot say who was involved. These attacks are designed to try and smash the peace process. There is even the possibility loyalists are attacking their own people to make the situation worse".
An Ulster Unionist spokesman, Mr Sam Foster, said he would not rule out involvement by the Continuity IRA, which has a strong base in Co Fermanagh. However, sources close to the organisation denied involvement.
The Fermanagh Brigade of the INLA emerged during the summer, when it made several statements threatening to defend nationalists at contentious parades in the mainly nationalist town of Newtownbutler.