The SDLP has accused the IRA of shooting a man in front of his family despite a claim of responsibility by loyalists.
The 30-year-old victim was arrested by RUC drugs squad officers yesterday while undergoing treatment for a shoulder injury at a Belfast hospital.
It is understood to be the second attempt on the man's life in three months.
Shortly after 7.30 p.m. on Thursday, Mr Stephen Quinn was leaving his home in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, when two gunmen opened fire as he climbed into his jeep with two sons, aged seven and 11.
Despite being injured Mr Quinn escaped by driving two miles. His wife, following in a car with two girls aged nine and 12, then drove him to Dungannon RUC station where he was given first aid and transferred to hospital.
Mr Vincent Currie, a local SDLP councillor, said he had no doubt the IRA was responsible for the attack despite a caller claiming the Red Hand Defenders carried it out. He said the incident exposed Sinn Fein's claim that IRA guns were silent.
"Clearly these silent guns are capable of inflicting as much damage and injury as the guns that are not silent," said Mr Currie. "I don't believe it was loyalists for one minute." Sinn Fein denied the IRA was responsible.
Meanwhile, British army bomb experts were yesterday called to defuse a pipe-bomb at a Catholic school in north Belfast. The UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, has urged Sir Ronnie Flanagan to state who he believes is responsible for recent violence, including the attempted car-bombing of Ballycastle, Co Antrim.
"The Chief Constable at one point said that over the course of the past year every leading paramilitary organisation have been engaged in acts of violence," he said. "I wish he would be more specific about it."
A man questioned in connection with serious crime in the Ballycastle area was released without charge yesterday.