A 16-year-old Limerick youth who was shot twice in the leg in a hail of gunfire was not the intended target of the attack, it has emerged.
The teenager was shot in the O'Malley Park estate in Southill in the first of a series of gun attacks linked to an ongoing feud.
The shootings took place in the city late on Thursday night and in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Gardaí said yesterday that they believed the intended target of the first shooting was a man sitting in a car with a woman and a child.
A car travelling in the opposite direction pulled up alongside with a number of men inside and they opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon as the youth was talking to the people in the first car.
The 16-year-old was hit twice in the leg in the spray of bullets.
However the intended target, who has links to a notorious southside criminal gang, was uninjured.
The gunmen sped off and their car was found burned out near Annacotty on the outskirts of Limerick.
The vehicle was forensically examined by gardaí yesterday, along with the car in which the intended target and the woman and child were travelling.
The injured youth was taken to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital where he underwent surgery.
He was said yesterday to be in a comfortable condition.
Supt Frank O'Brien of Roxboro Road Garda station said the incident was almost certainly linked to a feud in the city.
"Unfortunately there are a number of feuds in different parts of the city at the moment, and this incident was undoubtedly connected."
Supt O'Brien said the shooting was a reckless action in a built-up area where young children were out playing.
He said it showed a blatant disregard for human life.
Meanwhile, gardaí on the north side of the city are investigating shooting incidents at two different houses in the early hours of yesterday.
One theory being examined is that these shootings may have been revenge attacks on the homes of people with links to the gunmen who carried out the earlier shooting.
Shots were fired at a house in the Moyross estate at around 3am. Just 10 minutes later, shots were also fired at a house on Hogan Avenue in nearby Kileely.
No one was injured in either of these incidents.