Police search for killers of Northern Irish journalist

Police were searching for suspects in the fatal shooting of a 29-year-old journalist during a riot in the Northern Irish city of Derry (also known as Londonderry.)

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Lyra McKee was standing near police when she was shot in the head around 11pm local time in the suburb of Creggan. The city is known as Derry to Irish nationalists and Londonderry to British unionists.

Police said dissident Irish republicans were behind the "terrorist act," assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton told reporters on Friday.

"She was taken away in a police Land Rover to Altnagelvin Hospital but unfortunately she has died there. We have now launched a murder inquiry here in the city," Hamilton said.

"Our assessment at this time is that the new (Irish Republican Army) are most likely to be the ones behind this, and that forms our primary line of inquiry."

More than one person was behind the plot, he said, and that the intended target was likely the police officers McKee was standing next to, not the journalist herself, said deputy chief constable Stephen Martin.

The New IRA rejects the Good Friday agreement of 1998, which put an end to three decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland that claimed more than 3600 lives. They want to bring about a united Ireland.

Police had been carrying out search operations in the area against dissident republicans on Thursday when a public order situation developed, Hamilton said.

Fifty petrol bombs were thrown at police, and two cars were hijacked and set on fire.

McKee, who published books and articles on the Troubles, had described her native Northern Ireland as a "beautiful tragedy".

She had come to prominence in 2014 when she wrote a blog post, "Letter to my 14-year-old self", in response to homophobic comments made by a Northern Irish pastor.

In it she recounted the travails of growing up as a lesbian in Belfast. She wrote of coming out to her mother shortly before she turned 21: "You have to tell her because you've met someone you like and you can't live with the guilt anymore. You can't get the words out so she says it: 'Are you gay?' And you will say, 'Yes Mummy, I'm so sorry.' And instead of getting mad, she will reply, 'Thank God you're not pregnant'."

McKee was born in Belfast on March 31 1990, and brought up in the city on Cliftonville Road, near the infamous "Murder Mile". Her journalistic leanings made an early appearance when she started a school newspaper.

She went on to become an editor at Mediagazer, a US-based site that collates news reports, and to write for publications and websites that included The Atlantic, Buzzfeed, Private Eye and the Belfast Telegraph.

"Letter to my 14-year-old self" was adapted into a short film, and in 2016 Lyra McKee was named as one of the "30 Under the Age of 30" in Forbes magazine, which noted her willingness to "dig into topics that others don't care about".

Leo Varadkar, Ireland's prime minister, mourned McKee's death and sent his solidarity to journalists and the Derry community.

British Prime Minister Theresa May praised McKee's courage, calling her death "shocking and truly senseless."

McKee's non-fiction book, Angels With Blue Faces, tells the story of the murder of the Belfast MP, Rev Robert Bradford, during the Troubles.

She had recently signed a two-book deal with Faber & Faber, with the first, The Lost Boys, due for publication in 2020. The book recounts the disappearance of eight Belfast schoolboys between 1969 and 1975.

Her agent, speaking about the book, wrote: "Her focus as a journalist is the indirect ways the violence of war plays out, through its secondary waves of victims, and through the way trauma is passed on to subsequent generations."

Lyra McKee was due to speak at an Amnesty International event next month about the murder of Marie Colvin, to mark World Press Freedom Day. Her last piece was in the Belfast Telegraph, in which she wrote about the increase in suicide rates of young people since the Good Friday agreement.

A crowdfunding appeal to pay for Lyra McKee's funeral raised more than £5000 ($9078) in its first hour. She is survived by her family and her partner, Sara Canning.