Police have appealed for witnesses to last night's shooting in east Belfast which left a 22-year-old man in critical condition in hospital. It is believed Mr Alex McKinley was the latest victim of a bloody loyalist feud.
A PSNI spokesman said today several loud bangs were heard in the Euston Street area at the time of the attack - just before 9 p.m. A man was then seen slumped at the steering wheel of a black Toyota MR2. He got out of the car and staggered to the pavement where he collapsed.
Police later discovered him with one gunshot wound to the right side of his head. He underwent emergency surgery in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital last night following the attack. Police are treating the attack as attempted murder.
Earlier, another man escaped injury after a gunman targeted him a few streets away.
With tensions between rival loyalist terror organisations reaching boiling point, a former Belfast Lord Mayor pleaded for more police and army patrols.
Ulster Unionist East Belfast councillor Mr Jim Rodgers said: "The situation is getting completely out of hand, with paramilitary organisations determined to kill each other".
The festering dispute between Ulster Defence Association members and their rivals in the Loyalist Volunteer Force has erupted into a deadly spate of shootings in recent weeks.
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