Up to 150 people could be on a hit list because of the ongoing feud between the UVF and the LVF, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has said.
The PSNI warning coincides with publication of an Independent Monitoring Commission report on the feud which was published by the British and Irish governments yesterday.
The report, the IMC's sixth, was prompted by the serious escalation of the feud which has left five men dead since May.
It refers to the UVF ceasefire which was declared in October 1994 and dismissed as bogus by Northern Secretary Peter Hain last week.
It quotes the loyalist ceasefire statement of that year that expressed "abject and true remorse" for victims.
But the report goes on to record that, despite its assertion, the UVF "has not decommissioned weapons, has suspended its contact with the IICD [decommissioning body] and in the past two years been involved in murders, shootings, assaults and in organised and other crime".
The UVF, and the smaller Red Hand Commando, were ruthless and would opt for greater violence if they considered that to be in their interests.
The report states that the UVF is intent on wiping out the rival LVF which was formed following the expulsion of 10 UVF members in 1996.
To that end, Brian Stewart, Jameson Lockhart, Craig McCausland, Stephen Paul and Michael Green were all shot dead by the UVF.
Some 17 attempted murders, six shooting incidents, 18 bombings as well as other acts of violence are linked to the bitter enmity between the two paramilitary groups, the report states.
The LVF's violence was largely in response to UVF attacks which are designed to "finish off" the LVF and are fuelled by "treachery, criminal competition, greed and power".
The forced evictions of people from the Garnerville estate in east Belfast last summer and the campaign against taxi operators in west Belfast are also blamed on the feud.
Turning to the Progressive Unionist Party, which is associated with the UVF, the IMC stands by its recommendation that the party be sanctioned because of UVF violence.
Recognising the arguments of leader David Ervine, the party's sole Assembly member, that he is powerless to stop the UVF and therefore should not be punished for it, the report nonetheless sticks to its position.
"No democratic political party can expect to have it both ways," the IMC writes.
"It can either disassociate itself from the paramilitary group, or it must accept the consequences of its association. The circumstances of the current feud make that all the more important."
Justice Minister Michael McDowell said: "I fully support the IMC's decision to highlight the pain and damage inflicted upon the communities these groups purport to represent."
Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey said nationalists did not need the IMC, which his party vehemently opposes, to detail loyalist violence. "Predictably, however, the IMC has of course ignored the relationships between the various unionist paramilitary gangs and the UUP and DUP through the North and West Parades Forum and the Loyalist Commission and the well-documented relationship between these gangs and the PSNI and British forces through the numerous British agents working within these organisations," he said.
Alliance Party leader David Ford said the report made "chilling reading".