A Protestant paramilitary group, the Red Hand Defenders, claimed responsibility on Saturday for the killing of a leading Catholic journalist in Lurgan, southwest of Belfast.
"We claim responsibility for the murder," the group said in a telephone statement, confirmed as authentic, to the BBC, adding that the killing of Martin O'Hagen was carried out "for crimes against the loyalist community."
The Red Hand Defenders group has is the past been used as a cover name for the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defense Association -- two hard-line Protestant paramilitary groups.
The killing comes at a time when tensions have been rising in nearby Belfast between hard-line Protestants and police.
O'Hagan, 51, worked in Northern Ireland for the Dublin-based Sunday World -- a tabloid which prides itself on being a no-holds-barred paper.
He wrote predominantly about security issues surrounding hard-line Protestants in County Armagh, where Lurgan is situated.
Gunned down late Friday in a drive-by attack as he walked home from a local pub with his Protestant wife, he is thought to be the first journalist to have been killed in over 30 years of the province's troubles.
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who is also the area's parliamentarian, condemned as "cowardly" the murder.
"Tragically, Lurgan has witnessed yet another murder, and I would call upon the wider community to assist the RUC [police] in any way possible as they seek to bring to justice the perpetrators of this act," he said.
Jim McDowell, northern editor of the Sunday World, said he was "devastated" at the murder of his colleague. He traveled to Lurgan to comfort the murdered man's widow.
"He was a journalist who never stood back in his life. If there are issues to be addressed, then he did it," he told PA news agency. "This newspaper has suffered many threats in the past and everyone is shattered."
O'Hagen was shot in a mixed Protestant-Catholic area on the edge of town in the street close to his home at around 10:30 pm (2130 GMT), the Royal Ulster Constabulary said.
Late on Friday the British government gave a final warning to the Ulster Defense Association, one of Northern Ireland's biggest Protestant militias, after it promised to stop provoking violence, after a summer of sectarian tension in north Belfast.
In a dramatic about-turn, Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid said he had been 90 minutes away from declaring the Ulster Defense Association's cease-fire formally over when it came up with the pledge.
The effect of declaring the UDA's cease-fire at an end -- a damning censure -- would have been that scores of its members risked being returned to jail.
The UDA is committed to maintaining British rule over Northern Ireland, by force if necessary.
North Belfast is a sectarian powderkeg where Protestants and Catholics, who live cheek-by-jowl in neighboring streets, frequently clash.
Tensions have been high all summer. Each side habitually accuses the other of trying to drive them out of the area, and there have also been hate-fuelled clashes over the route Catholic children take to primary school.
When they are not fighting each other, they target security forces.
In the latest clashes overnight Thursday, 13 police officers were injured trying to quell rioting by Protestants, who claim police are failing to protect them from Republican attacks.
Republicans, who are overwhelmingly Catholic, want Northern Ireland united with the Irish Republic -- BELFAST (AFP)
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