While tensions exist within loyalist paramilitary organisations, these are due to localised difficulties, senior loyalist sources have insisted. They say there is no threat to the ceasefire and no indication of any feud between the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association.
The UVF in north-west Belfast is held responsible for shooting Mr Mahood. The organisation has made no comment but there have been tensions in the strongly loyalist Ligoniel/Ballysillan area.
A year ago Tommy Stewart, a long-serving UVF member highly respected within the organisation, was shot dead after proceeds from a post office robbery disappeared. UVF figures in the area believed he had been shot after confronting the robbers.
Senior loyalist figures also reported that the splinter loyalist group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, led by maverick loyalist Billy Wright, was making inroads into Ballysillan. This, too, annoyed the UVF which earlier this year sent men to Wright's heartland in Portadown to beat up his supporters.
The reasons for shooting Mr Mahood, who owns a taxi firm, are unclear but he appears to have been caught up in internal loyalist rows. No organisation has admitted responsibility and it is unlikely any will admit the attack.
Mr Mahood has long-standing links with loyalism. He was part of the delegation from the UVF's political wing, the Progressive Unionist Party, at the Stormont talks but it is known he had differences with other PUP members and later left the party.
The shooting is said to have no connection with loyalist rioting in the Shankill area this week. Local people say local UDA figures organised the rioting after the RUC seized cannabis and arrested a leading local figure. The man is expected to face drugs charges shortly.
The UDA is emerging as the more belligerent and volatile loyalist group. Besides rioting, its members have engaged in turf wars with young UVF members in north Belfast and Derry. According to loyalists, there is also increasing evidence that senior UDA figures are either actively involved in drug dealing or profiting from drugs.
Police on both sides of the Border have watched UDA figures as they associated with former republicans also involved in drugs. The killing of UDA man Glen Greer, who was killed by a car bomb in Co Down last month, was carried out because he was suspected of passing information to the police about UDA drugs dealers.
Two months ago, the UDA also withdrew from its formal relationship with the UVF under the Combined Loyalist Military Command umbrella. But other loyalists said the CLMC was only ever a notional organisation and had been defunct for some time.