BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Gunmen shot and killed a Protestant police reservist and a Roman Catholic milkman Thursday as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army denied it launched a terror campaign to disrupt next month's British elections.
The reservist, Colin Carson, 31, married with two children, was shot to death at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Cookstown, County Tyrone, 60 miles west of Belfast, four minutes before he was scheduled to sign off after overnight duty.
Police said a red van drove up and a masked gunman opened fire through the open door with an automatic weapon. They said they opened fire as the van sped away but failed to halt it.
Carson, who had served two years with the force, was the 10th policeman killed in Northern Ireland violence this year.
A later message to Belfast media claimed the killing on behalf of the 'Tyrone Brigade' of the outlawed IRA, which is fighting to force the merger of Ulster with Ireland and set up a socialist state.
In the second attack, a suspected Protestant gunman fatally shot milkman Trevor Close from close range as he delivered milk in north Belfast. Close underwent emergency surgery for chest and head wounds but died in the hospital several hours later.
Police sources said Close was a known Irish nationalist militant and a former member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, political wing of the Marxist Irish National Liberation Army.
The attacks came several hours before Sinn Fein, political wing of the IRA, unveiled its program for Britain's June 9 general election in which it is running in 14 of Northern Ireland's 17 seats in the British parliament.
Sinn Fein secured 10 percent of the Ulster vote in local Ulster Assembly elections last year but their chances in the general election were slim, political observers said.
'We are hoping to increase our vote by 50 percent,' said Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein's vice president. Housing, unemployment and social welfare are the main issues, he said.
The spate of IRA bombings and killings since the election was announced had 'nothing to do with the Sinn Fein election campaign,' Adams said.
He refused comment on reports that Catholic families were angered that their homes were wrecked by an IRA bomb which demolished Andersonstown police station in Belfast Tuesday.
In London, a Belfast man was ordered jailed for 17 years for taking part in an IRA bombing campaign in mainland Britain in 1978-79.
John McComb, 29, was convicted of conspiring with Gerard Tuite, once Scotland Yard's 'most wanted man' and now jailed in Ireland, to plant 16 bombs throughout Britain.
No one was killed, partly because five of the bombs failed to go off.
