30/06/2008

Dublin Gang Leader Flees Ireland After Grenade Attack

A notorious Dublin gang leader has fled the country after a hand grenade was thrown into his house.

During the attack on Saturday morning, a red Fiat Punto pulled up to the house and a male ran to the front door, threw a rock through the window breaking the glass, followed by the grenade.

There were four adults, a teenager and a six-year-old boy in the house at the time, but all escaped injury.

Senior officers investigating the feud in the south Dublin Crumlin and Drimnagh suburbs believe the leader of one of the gangs involved has left the country, most likely for Spain, to escape further attempts on his life.

Gardaí believe the residents of the house on Knocknarea Avenue were targeted because they are related to a man who is a member of one of the feuding gangs. Saturday's attack is believed to be directly linked to recent tit-for-tat non-fatal attacks in the feud.

Last Wednesday, a grandmother in her 50s was wounded in the shoulder when a gunman fired shots into her home on Knocknarea Road, close to the scene of the subsequent grenade attack. Later on Wednesday, the home of an elderly couple was shot at in the Coombe.

The warring gangs have been locked in a cycle of attacks since one leading criminal accused another of informing following a Garda seizure of a major drugs shipment nine years ago.

Most of those involved were teenagers at the time and are still in their 20s now. Gardaí believe the fighting is now a personalised feud and a drugs turf war. The main players have made considerable sums dealing cocaine.

(DW)

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