Hundreds in N. Ireland Mourn Police Slain by IRA

LONDON — Hundreds of people lined up in the tense, grieving town of Lurgan in Northern Ireland on Tuesday to mourn the terrorist slayings of two policemen.

Townsfolk waited patiently under sunny skies to sign condolence books outside the heavily fortified police barracks in Lurgan, where the fault line between Roman Catholics and Protestants runs along the main street.

“My blood runs cold at this dreadful act. Deepest sympathy,” read one message.

Many people just signed their names. Others placed flowers and stood silently near Church Walk, where officers John Graham, 34, and David Johnston, 30, were shot to death Monday by members of the Irish Republican Army. Their funerals are today.

One man was arrested for questioning, police said, but he was not immediately charged or identified.

Detectives canvassing the neighborhood said Tuesday that the killers apparently stalked the two officers as they walked their beat Monday morning in the center of a market town that is a microcosm of the sectarian violence that has bedeviled Northern Ireland for three decades.

Four years ago, the business district of the town that is almost equally divided between Catholics and Protestants was devastated by an IRA bomb. Last summer, Protestant terrorists killed a Catholic taxi driver.

A police spokesman said the killers Monday apparently wore wigs and false beards. Detectives believe the assassins fell in behind the two officers as they walked and fired shots to the men’s heads at close range, a common assassination technique of the IRA, which quickly claimed responsibility for the slayings.

There was widespread concern that Monday’s killings were meant to trigger a wave of revenge attacks by pro-British Protestant gunmen nominally observing a cease-fire.

David Adams of the Ulster Democratic Party, which is linked to Protestant paramilitary groups that call themselves “Ulster Freedom Fighters,” said: “The future looks dark. We continually tried . . . to ensure the loyalists retain their cease-fire, but we may have to face the reality that this may well push them to the brink.”

“Loyalist” terrorists have killed more than 800 Catholics in three decades of unslaked hatred.

Tensions were already high over a planned parade next month in the town of Portadown, about 10 miles from the site of the slayings. Last summer, after an angry standoff, a Protestant march through a Catholic neighborhood of Portadown brought rioting.

Attempts to negotiate agreement between the marchers and Catholic residents this year have failed amid renewed bitter feelings on both sides. Police fear that the July 6 march could prove the spark for widespread violence.