MAINLINE loyalist paramilitaries will almost certainly carry out further attacks on IRA or Sinn Fein members in response to the IRA's killing of two RUC men last week.
A violent reaction to the IRA's double murder of RUC Constables David Johnston and John Graham is an "inevitability", according to sources close to the loyalist paramilitary leaderships. The response, the sources said yesterday, would be "measured".
The loyalists maintain they do not want to become reinvolved in violence but may be compelled to do something if only to appease militant elements within their own ranks.
There is no indication of whether or not the attack would take place inside Northern Ireland or in the Republic. The loyalists say they believe the IRA brought gunmen in from an area outside Lurgan to carry out the killings on Monday last, so any retaliation against republicans need not necessarily be in the north Armagh area.
The loyalist paramilitaries, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), have commercial explosives and detonators and have been developing their bomb making skills. The bomb found underneath a Sinn Fein councillor's car in Ballycastle, Co Antrim, on Thursday night contained 2 lb of commercial explosive, and was probably planted by the UDA, it is understood. If it had exploded it would almost certainly have killed anybody in the vehicle.
The loyalists admit that so long as the IRA campaign continues any loyalist ceasefire will be largely a pretence and they will continue to target republicans, although there will be no official "claims" relating to any attacks.
This reticence to become heavily re-involved in violence, however, does not apply to the breakaway Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) which emerged as a result of last year's loyalist stand-off at Drumcree. This group has attracted a number of extreme figures including several who were expelled in the past year from the UDA and UVF. It has an unknown number of firearms and may also have explosives.
The fact that the LVF did not respond immediately to the killings of the RUC men in Lurgan is said to be largely because the RUC recently moved against this organisation, arresting two of its leading figures and their wives.
It is thought likely that unless this group is broken up by the RUC it will engage in sectarian killings over the summer. Its members in Portadown were responsible for murdering the Catholic taxi driver, Mr Michael McGoldrick, during last July's loyalist standoff at Drumcree.
There are also significant internal tensions within the mainline loyalist paramilitaries, the UDA and UVF, in Belfast over the killing of the Shankill Road figure, Robert Bates.
Bates, who was an ex-member of the Ulster Volunteer Force and one of the notorious Shankill Butchers gang which killed several Catholics by cutting their throats during the 197Os, was shot dead by a young member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) nine days ago.
It is understood Bates, who was released from prison last year after serving 20 years for 10 murders, was killed in revenge for the murder of a Shankill road UDA man, James Moorhead, in 1977.
The leadership of the UDA and UVF are understood to have had something of a standoff over the incident, with the Shankill UVF indicating that it wants to kill the young UDA man who shot Bates. The young man has gone on the run in the face of the UVF threat.
It is understood the UDA leadership has tentatively agreed to the UVF demand that the young man be killed, but this is causing tensions within the UDA rank and file membership among whom the young man is held in some esteem. Younger UDA members are understood to be particularly incensed at the prospect of the young man being shot.
The situation is creating considerable tension and is threatening to destabilise the leadership of the UDA which has already been coming under pressure from its members to openly return to violence.