London - A former member of the now inactive Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland appeared in court Friday charged with the murder of two British soldiers in the province three weeks ago.

   Colin Duffy, 41, was also charged late Thursday with five counts of attempted murder and illegal possession of firearms.

He is the first person held in connection with the attack, the first on British soldiers in the province since 1997.

A defence barrister said Duffy remained silent during his brief court appearance at Larne Magistrates Court, near Belfast, except to deny his involvement in the killing. He was remanded in custody until April 21.

Snappers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey, both in their 20s, died in a hail of bullets outside the British army's Massareene barracks, near Belfast, on March 7, as they were collecting a pizza delivery on the night they were due to fly out for deployment in Afghanistan.

Two more soldiers, and two pizza delivery men, including a Polish citizen, were injured in the attack.

It was followed two days later by the murder of 48-year-old police officer Stephen Correll in the southern town of Craigavon. Two men, aged 17 and 37, have been charged with his murder, and a third has been accused of withholding information from the police.

The Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, both splinter groups of the former IRA, claimed responsibility for the two attacks, which have been widely condemned in Northern Ireland.

Duffy, a former IRA prisoner, is known to be an outspoken opponent of the main IRA's decision to renounce violence and disarm, following the 1998 peace accord.

As he was led from the dock Friday there were cheers and a round of applause from supporters backing dissident Republican groups.

Duffy was among six men set free on the orders of the High Court in Belfast Wednesday which ruled that the prolonged detention of suspects without charge was "unlawful."

But he was immediately re-arrested.

His arrest has increased tensions in Northern Ireland, especially between dissident Republicans and Sinn Fein, the party of Gerry Adams, which has supported the peace process and is now in a power-sharing government with Protestants in the province.