Murder Raises New Doubts Over IRA Ceasefire ================================== Fresh doubts have been raised over the IRA ceasefire amid claims that the organisation was responsible for the murder of a leading republican dissident in Northern Ireland. Anti-agreement campaigner Jeffrey Donaldson and the mother of the victim say there is evidence that the Provisionals carried out yesterday's fatal gun attack in west Belfast. Ulster Unionist MP Mr Donaldson says the development could push the power-sharing devolved administration in Belfast closer to collapse. He said: "I don't believe that we can sustain indefinitely our participation in an executive that includes representatives of the IRA who engaged in murder on the streets and refuse to decommission their weapons." The man who died, Joseph O'Connor, was suspected of being a key figure in the Real IRA, the splinter group which bombed Omagh, Co Tyrone, two years ago killing 29 people including a woman heavily pregnant with twins. Police say they have yet to establish a motive for the attack in the republican stronghold of Ballymurphy. There were suggestions that his murder may have been the result of a dispute between rival factions of dissident republican terrorists but the victim's mother, Margaret O'Connor, blamed the Provisional IRA. She told the BBC: "They were seen, locals saw them. People saw them with their masks on and with their masks off. They are a known unit within the Ballymurphy district." Mr O'Connor, 26, a married father of three boys, had just left his mother's house on Whitecliff Parade and got into a car when the gunmen approached and shot him at point blank range. (Supanet News (c) Ananova)
