Gardaí believe that a dissident republican paramilitary group from Strabane, Co Tyrone, with links to a local criminal gang, carried out a gun attack in the Co Donegal village of St Johnston on Tuesday night, shooting a man in both legs.
The victim, in his 40s, who is believed to come from the Castlefin area, was in a house at Carrickmore on the outskirts of St Johnston when three masked men, two of them armed with handguns and the other with a pick axe, burst into the two-storey house.
They singled out the victim and shot him in both legs. Two other men and a woman who were also in the house were not injured but were said to have been traumatised by the incident. The wounded man was taken to Letterkenny General Hospital where his condition was said to be comfortable yesterday.
The wounded man's car, a white Cavalier, was used as a getaway vehicle by the gang. It was later found burned out in Lifford close to the Border with Strabane.
Garda Insp David Murphy said the investigation into the shooting was at an early stage and several lines of inquiry were being examined.
"We have an open mind at the moment and our technical and forensic examinations of the scene are continuing. I would not like to put any particular label or tag on the shooting, other than to say it was a very serious shooting incident in which a man was unfortunately injured.
"It is too early to say where the perpetrators of this crime are likely to have come from, but this incident is not indicative of an increased level of gun crime in Donegal. There were three other people in the house at the time and they have been very traumatised by what has happened.
"We will be interviewing them to see what we can learn from their observations."
Sinn Féin councillor Tony McDaid from Lifford said the shooting was the third of its kind in the area in the last 18 months. "It is vigilantism and it only ignites fear in the community. I have been saying for some time that extra gardaí must be deployed into the rural areas. We have held a number of public meetings in the area at which people demanded accountable policing. This violent incident only adds to people's fears."