Tensions have increased between rival sides in the loyalist feud after an 11-year-old girl was seriously injured in a UVF gun attack on her home in Coleraine, Co Derry.
The Progressive Unionist Party, the UVF's political wing, refused to condemn the shooting but there was widespread condemnation from other politicians. British soldiers were ordered back onto the streets of Coleraine after the attack.
Mr John White of the UDA's political wing, the Ulster Democratic Party, said he feared the feud could spread out of control all over the North. "We want to pull back or the repercussions could be very serious."
Charlene Daly, daughter of a former UDA prisoner, was shot when the UVF raked her family's home in Jefferson Park on the Ballysally Estate with automatic gunfire on Monday night. She is ill but stable in hospital.
Three men are being questioned by detectives about the shooting. It followed a gun attack on the home of a PUP supporter in the same estate. Charlene was watching television with her parents and younger sister when the attack happened.
The house was hit 19 times. The gunmen also fired on the children's bedroom. Mr Billy McFarlane of the UDP said: "This just wasn't an attempt to scare - it was an attempt to take out a complete family."
A PUP spokesman, Mr Ken Wilkinson, expressed regret but said the shooting was inevitable in the wake of attacks on the homes of his party's supporters.
The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, condemned the shooting as "insane". He was outraged that "an innocent child should be drawn into a feud between paramilitary gangsters".
He said: "I have been appalled by the level to which these callous thugs are prepared to stoop. "The shooting of an innocent child, in fact any violence, will never bring Northern Ireland a step closer to peace. This violence must end now."
The Ulster Unionist MP for East Derry, Mr Willie Ross, said: "Heaven knows where and when this absolute madness, this butchery, will end. It is extremely worrying and there is deep resentment within the Protestant community about what is going on.
"Far too many lives have been lost in this vendetta but it seems to be spreading and looking to end in more deaths."
The North's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, said: "It is quite unbelievable that a young girl could be shot in her own home in circumstances such as these. Those who carried out the attack have obviously disregarded the well-being even of children to put their own murderous agenda before people."
Meanwhile, the families of two loyalist feud murder victims claimed they were being intimidated.
Ms Cheryl Chinnery, whose boyfriend, Mr Sam Rockett, was shot dead by the UDA last Wednesday, said the organisation had attacked her home in Summer Street in the Shankill area. "They were shouting all sorts," she said.
Ms Agnes Coulter, whose husband Jackie was killed by the UVF, said UVF men with hammers had arrived at her house on the Shankill, yelling abuse about her husband. She said they were trying to drive her out. "But the UVF doesn't scare me," she added.