Two arrested over Belfast killing

Forensic experts examine the scene where a Catholic postal worker was shot

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Two men have been arrested in Northern Ireland by police hunting the loyalist killers of a Catholic postman.

A police spokeswoman told the Press Association the men were being questioned on Sunday about the murder of 20-year-old Daniel McColgan, who was shot dead as he arrived for work at a Belfast sorting office.

The killing was later claimed, in a call to the British Broadcasting Corporation, by the Red Hand Defenders, a pro-British loyalist group.

That name has been used as a cover identity by both the Ulster Defence Association and the Loyalist Volunteer Force in the past.

Meanwhile, postal workers in Belfast were not collecting or delivering mail on as a show of respect for their murdered colleague.

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Members of the Communications Workers Union will also not make any deliveries on Monday in McColgan's memory.

John Keggie, the union's deputy general secretary, told PA there was a feeling of "shock and anger" among postal workers across the country.

Police said McColgan was killed for no other reason than that he was a Catholic in a loyalist area.

The Red Hand Defenders said they now considered all Catholic postal workers to be "legitimate targets."

The killing comes amid growing tension in the city after a week marred by riots on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Holy Cross Catholic girls' school, that became a symbol last year for sectarian violence in the British province, was at the center of fresh disturbances.

Eighty police and soldiers have been injured in two nights of rioting in Belfast

Politicians in Britain and Ireland condemned the violence.

"Another young man has had his life cruelly and brutally ended," British Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid told PA.

"Another family has been devastated by evil people."

Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said it "represents a return to the brutality and futility of the past -- a past which we hoped was consigned to the darker pages of history."