Police in Derry say they were treating a double shotgun attack in the city late on Thursday night as a case of attempted murder.
A PSNI spokesman yesterday ruled out both a paramilitary and a sectarian motive to the incidents and said its main line of inquiry was that they stemmed from a dispute within the Travelling community.
Two men in a blue Peugeot car were fired at near the junction of Steelstown Road and Madam's Bank Road in the Shantallow area. A shotgun cartridge was fired at their car by a gunman in the rear seat of an adjacent red Peugeot car, but the gunman missed his target.
As the blue car was driven at speed towards the city centre, it was followed by the red car. The same gunman again opened fire, this time shattering the rear windscreen of the blue Peugeot.
"The car containing the gunman was then driven at high speed along Buncrana Road, crashing into a bus and into six cars," the PSNI spokesman said.
"It's a miracle no one was killed in the double gun attack and it's also a miracle that innocent members of the public escaped injury in both the shooting incidents and as the gunman and his accomplice made their high-speed getaway. The whole thing was absolute madness," the spokesman said.
Detectives investigating the incidents found the gunman's car burnt out at the Upper Galliagh Road, a cross-Border road between Derry and Donegal.
Meanwhile at Bridgend in Co Donegal, two other cars were found burnt out and police on both sides of the Border believe there is a connection between the gun attacks and the cars found in Bridgend.