Loyalist paramilitaries have dumped a stockpile of explosives to be defused by police and the army in Northern Ireland, it emerged tonight.
Ulster Defence Association leaders in the west of the city rounded up their arsenal of pipe bombs and left them at a drop-off point in the hardline Shankill area.
The organisation claimed it wanted the weapons destroyed as part of a major drive to restore order following a violent feud with rogue UDA boss Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair and his supporters.
In a statement, it said: "Tonight the West Belfast Brigade of the Ulster Defence Association left pipe bombs at Ewarts Playing Fields to be disposed of by the security services.
"We took this action to eradicate pipe bombs from our community as part of the ongoing steps to stabilise and normalise loyalist west Belfast."
It is understood a total of 17 devices and component parts were put in bags and transported to the drop-off point.
Police chiefs and British government officials at the Northern Ireland Office were alerted to the plan before the operation was launched.
Senior detectives and Army explosives experts were tonight heading to the area to begin a major security operation to ensure the pipe bombs are made safe.
But loyalist sources have insisted this was not an act of decommissioning, claiming that General John de Chastelain's international disarmament group was not involved to oversee the move.
Instead, the paramilitaries said they wanted to demonstrate how the new regime will operate after Adair's family and C Company associates were forced to flee to Scotland earlier this month as a bloody shooting war which claimed four lives was brought to an end.
A NIO spokesman said: "These are deadly weapons that should never have been made in the first place.
"But obviously we welcome the fact that they are being made safe by members of the security forces."
Pipe bombs have been used by loyalist terrorists in hundreds of attacks on Catholic homes across Northern Ireland. Several people have also been killed by the devices.
Alban Maginness, an Assembly member of the nationalist SDLP in Belfast, welcomed the move but insisted the paramilitaries must make more than just a token gesture. "I hope that this isn't another stunt by the UDA simply to rehabilitate themselves after some very very bad publicity over the past number of months," he said.
"But at least they have got rid of some weapons which are potentially lethal and that says something positive.
"Having started to do this they should now finish the job by handing in all their weapons and all their explosives so that the whole community will be safe."
A spokeswoman for the Police Service of Northern Ireland later confirmed that officers had found the weapons.
"As a result of information received police have discovered what appears to be a number of devices in the area of Ewarts Bowling Club at Summerdale Park in North Belfast," she said.
She added that army bomb disposal experts had been called to the scene