A taxi driver was in a critical condition in hospital in Derry last night, after two gunmen tried to murder him when he called for a bogus fare in the Waterside area early yesterday.
Mr Raymond Millar, a father of five in his late 30s, was hit in the chest when the gunmen, believed to be loyalist paramilitaries, lured him to a loyalist housing estate just before 4 a.m. Mr Millar tried to flee from his car when he saw the gunmen approaching.
Detectives think the gunmen telephoned a taxi firm in the Catholic Top of the Hill area of the Waterside - and that firm passed on the call to a firm employing mainly Protestant drivers.
Mr Millar was rushed to Altnagelvin Hospital where a spokesman said he was in a "critical but stable" condition.
DUP Assemblyman Mr William Hay condemned the attack as a "deliberate sectarian murder" attempt, which he thought was a case of mistaken identity.
"I have no doubt that loyalist paramilitaries were behind this," he said. "My information is that they set out to murder a Catholic taxi driver . . . What they didn't reckon with was the first firm asking another firm to pick up the fare, so instead of gunning down a Catholic driver, they shot a Protestant driver.
"The sinister activities of these evil gangs must stop. Obviously they're trying to bring their terror from other parts of the province to Londonderry and they must stop now."
SDLP councillor Mr Philip Kelly said the loyalist paramilitaries were "a throwback to the dark ages and neither they nor their murderous activities are wanted by either community".
In Armagh, a petrol bomb was thrown into a house at 1 a.m. yesterday. No one was injured. Earlier, a car was set on fire in the Ballynahone Avenue area. Petrol bombs were thrown at a house in the Waterside area of Derry after midnight on Saturday. Local sources said it could have been drug-related.
A gunman wearing a balaclava fired a shot at a man in a pub in Holywood, Co Down on Saturday night, wounding him in the leg. Police said it was not a sectarian incident.
In Carrickfergus, three masked men armed with a handgun and baseball bats forced their way into a house in Greenisland at 11 p.m. on Friday and assaulted two 15-yearold boys, breaking one boy's arm. On the same night a 19-yearold man was abducted at 7.20 p.m. He was driven to the Saintfield Road area where he was shot in both ankles.