Gardai are investigating whether a gun attack in the capital on Thursday night was linked to the notorious Hutch/Kinahan feud which has claimed 19 lives.

Detectives believe it is a “complete fluke” that no one died in the botched shooting in the Belclare Grove area of Ballymun shortly after 8.30pm.

Gardai fear the shooting on the housing estate could prompt retaliatory attacks in the capital this weekend.

It has emerged that two men aligned to one of the feuding gangs travelled from the north inner city to Ballymun for a “meeting” with another man.

“All the indications are that this meeting was an attempt to exert some kind of pressure on him,” said a senior source.

“After the meeting, the two men left in a car registered to someone with a Swords address, but within seconds, the car was shot at five times.”

The men escaped unharmed and are believed to have fled the scene on foot. No arrests have yet been made.

Gardai confirmed the incident in a statement yesterday, stating that gardai had received a call of shots fired in Belclare Grove on Thursday.

A garda spokeswoman said that there were “no reports of persons injured”, and investigations are ongoing.

Tensions in the bitter feud continue to grow after a series of incidents that began with a pipe bomb attack on a van owned by an innocent 51-year-old man in the East Wall area last Sunday night.

This attack has been blamed by Kinahan cartel associates on convicted drug dealer and notorious thug Gary Hanley, even though sources said that gardai were originally looking at a different motive.

Since the pipe bomb attack, there has been an attempt to burn out Hanley’s car near his Marino home.

There has also been a “heartless” attack on an innocent elderly north inner city man suffering from cancer who is well known to Hanley.

In that sickening incident, a window was smashed in the old man’s home.

Gardai are probing whether Thursday night’s incident in Ballymun could be linked to the ongoing north inner city mayhem but have yet to form a definite conclusion.

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