A DUBLIN man is recovering in hospital after he was shot twice in a gun attack in the city at the weekend.
Gardaí believe the shooting is linked to a drugs feud between criminals based in Finglas.
The 41-year-old victim had just been collected from a house at Cardiffsbridge Road in Finglas when he was attacked just before midday on Saturday.
A gunman approached on foot and shot him once as he sat in the passenger seat of a car as his partner was driving. He got out of the vehicle and tried to run from the gunman towards a house on the road.
He fell in the front garden and the gunman fired more shots from his handgun. One round wounded the victim in the stomach as he lay on the ground.
The gunman then ran from the scene as local people called emergency services. The wounded man was taken by ambulance to the Mater hospital. His condition is described as critical but stable.
A short time after the incident gardaí arrested two men for questioning. Both are in their 20s and from Finglas.
One of the men was arrested on foot on Cardiffsbridge Road while the other was stopped by gardaí as he was driving a vehicle in nearby Glasnevin.
The men were detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. They were questioned at Finglas and Blanchardstown Garda stations.
One of the men was released without charge last night. The second man had been released from his period of detention relating to the shooting but was being detained in Finglas last night on an outstanding bench warrant relating to a separate matter.
A file on the shooting is being prepared for the DPP.
Five houses in Finglas and Cabra were searched over the weekend and a Nissan van believed to have been used in the gun attack was confiscated for technical examination.
Gardaí believe the shooting is linked to a drugs feud in Finglas.
One faction is made up of drug dealers formerly aligned to the murdered armed robber John Daly. He fell foul of other criminals when he rang RTÉ's Liveline programme from his cell in Portlaoise Prison in May 2007. He was murdered in October of last year just after his release from jail. The other faction is made up of former members of the gang led by Marlo Hyland, who was shot dead by his own associates in Finglas two years ago.
The man shot yesterday was a friend of Daly's, and is known to gardaí.
The weekend shooting was the third in west Dublin in three weeks in which the victims either escaped or survived.
On October 22nd, a 28-year-old man was shot in the face at his home in Russell Rise, Tallaght. The victim is believed to have been targeted because he broke up a row in a pub. He remains critically ill in hospital.
On October 24th, a convicted drug dealer was shot at while travelling in a car at Hampton Wood Road in Finglas. He escaped injury.