A spokesman for Merseyside police confirmed that five teenagers were arrested from the Croxteth and Norris Green areas of Liverpool.

The boys are aged 15, 16 and 19 and the girls are 15 and 18.

Another boy, aged 15, is already in custody having been held yesterday.

Speaking before the latest round of arrests, Chief Superintendent Chris Armitt said he was sure the crime would be solved.

He said: "We are confident of solving this crime and we want to solve it as quickly as possible.

"There may be members of the public or witnesses who have information that can assist us and we want that information as quickly as possible."

He said that officers enjoyed the support of an overwhelming number of the community, but understood locals' fear of reprisals if they came forward.

"Officers who live and work in the community regularly give evidence against criminals in court, " he said.

"People have to stand up and be counted and speak to us."

He added that detectives were concerned that the community must know where the murder weapon came from and where it went after the 11-year-old's shooting.

Chief Inspector Mike Cloherty, responsible for policing in Croxteth, took the press on a police van tour around Croxteth and Norris Green yesterday afternoon.

He said he wanted potential witnesses to take courage from the recent inquest into the death of teenager Jessie James, 15, which was halted when new witnesses came forward in the year-old Manchester murder investigation.

He said: "We need to turn statements into evidence, we will protect people's identities and we will convict the killers."

During the tour of the area that has made international headlines for gang violence, the chief inspector said the two competing gangs from Croxteth and Norris Green had been one drug-dealing group up until a split in 2004.

The officer stressed the wider community, in which Rhys lived, has nothing to do with gang structures: "The fact is 99.9% of residents are law abiding.

"We have a small number, as in any other urban area, of people involved in criminality.

"Over a two-year period from 2005 to 2006 we executed 300 warrants.

"In that time we have recovered a large number of firearms, in excess of 15 firearms in the immediate locality, " he said, referring to Croxteth Park.

The chief inspector said detectives have followed the activities of leaders of the criminal underclass to such an extent that recently one offender was followed to an airport before a holiday to Amsterdam.

He said this was done to make sure that serious criminals knew they were being followed.

He said: "This man had officers sitting around him in the airport before he flew out; he knew we were following him.

"He was effectively a key driver of criminality in that particular gang.

"He had an affect on a particular community and that was part of the strategy to stop him."

The senior officer also said another man in the Croxteth/Norris Green area was one of a gang of 12 given anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) to restrict their liberty. Under the terms of his Asbo, the man is not allowed to turn right out of his own house and lives in an exclusion zone.

During the police tour, the van stopped in a shopping area known as The Strand, where half the shops were closed. The chief inspector said the situation had improved in the last 12 months from a time when offending was so bad one shop was �600 ( 885) a week down on its takings.

Meanwhile, yesterday the father of Madeleine McCann sent a message of support to the parents of Rhys Jones.

Gerry McCann told the Edinburgh International Television Festival that he and wife Kate were "incredibly shocked" to hear of the shooting.

He said: "It is a tragic waste of a young life and his parents have our sympathy.

"I hope they have time to grieve.

It will take them a long time to come to terms with what has happened, and I hope the perpetrator is found.

"But I think the difference between them and us, though, is that we are still in the middle of this trauma whereas they will have some closure."

Gerry McCann was at the festival to speak about the media coverage of the disappearance of four-year-old Madeleine, who vanished from her bed in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz in Portugal while her parents ate with friends in a nearby tapas restaurant.