Man killed in front of mother

A teenager was shot dead in front of his mother at their home in north Belfast last night.

Bridie O'Hara begged the masked gunmen to shoot her instead of her 19-year-old son Gerard. But they shot him in the head and then opened fire again as he lay dying on the living room floor of his home at North Queen Street.

He was the 60th person to die in the province this year. The Ulster Freedom Fighters later said they had shot Mr O'Hara.

Late last night, the IRA claimed that it was behind the shooting of a second man at Tollymore Gardens in Andersonstown, west Belfast. The man's condition was not known.

In a third incident last night, gunmen from the Ulster Freedom Fighters looking for an alleged IRA man, burst into a house occupied by two nuns in Lever Street, Ligoniel, north belfast. They kicked open the door and forced their way into bedrooms. The nuns were unharmed.

Yesterday's murder took place hours after the funeral of another Catholic shot dead by Ulster Freedom Fighters. Leonard Fox, a father of five, from Lurgan, Co Armagh, was gunned down in front of his son as he repaired a house on the Protestant Ballybeen estate at Dundonald, near Belfast.