Ex-chief of IRA splinter group killed in Irish city of Cork
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DUBLIN — Two gunmen ambushed and killed a former top figure in the Real IRA splinter group in the southwest city of Cork, the first slaying of its kind in four years in Ireland, police and witnesses said Wednesday.
The attackers approached Aidan “The Beast” O’Driscoll from behind in the street, shot him once in the back, then twice more as the 37-year-old lay on the pavement. O’Driscoll, the Real IRA’s reputed former chief of staff, died two hours later while undergoing surgery at Cork’s hospital.
No group claimed responsibility. Police said the list of suspects was long, because O’Driscoll made many enemies in both gangland and IRA circles. Two cars believed to have been used by the attackers were abandoned in different parts of Cork and set on fire in a bid to destroy forensic evidence, a trademark IRA practice.
O’Driscoll was a close associate of Alan Ryan, the top Real IRA figure in Dublin, who launched a deadly war against rival drug-dealing gangs in the Irish capital and was shot to death in retaliation in 2012.
