A taxi-driver was shot dead in west Belfast on Saturday night, bringing to eight the number of Catholics murdered in the North in the four weeks since LVF leader Billy Wright was killed in the Maze prison.
Another man escaped serious injury when he was shot by loyalists in Lurgan early yesterday.
Mr John McColgan (33) was killed after picking up a fare on the Andersonstown Road shortly after 9 p.m. His body was found dumped on a road close to Hannahstown Hill a half an hour later.
He was shot five times in the back of the head at point-blank range. His killers used his taxi to make their getaway, and the car was later found burned out at the Giant's Ring on the outskirts of south Belfast.
Mr McColgan was married with two sons and a daughter under the age of 12. His wife, Lorraine, said yesterday that she and her children were "devastated" and appealed for no retaliation. "I feel so sorry for them. I don't know how they can sleep in their beds at night. I cannot feel hatred for what they did to him, and I wouldn't wish this on any family what I'm going through today. Catholics or Protestants, please don't let them go through it."
Mr McColgan worked with STS Taxis on the Andersonstown Road, and it was disclosed after his death that a colleague was earlier flagged down by the killers, but radioed Mr McColgan because he already had someone in the car. A number of men are believed to have got into Mr McColgan's car.
The Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Patrick Walsh, described the killing as brutal and said people in the area were very frightened. "It is really very, very worrying that they should come here into Andersonstown, that there were men with guns standing in the middle of this Catholic area. The very manner of the murder was particularly brutal," he added.
Mr Alex Attwood of the SDLP said the killing would confirm the anger and anxiety in the nationalist community because Mr McColgan was abducted "from the heart of west Belfast, killed in west Belfast, and the killers were able to make an easy escape".
No loyalist group has yet admitted responsibility for the attack. On Friday, the UFF issued a statement admitting it had been involved in a number of recent murders, and saying its "response" to what it called "republican aggression by the INLA" was now concluded.
Mr McColgan was the second Catholic to be killed over the weekend. On Friday night Liam Conway (39) was shot as he worked on gas pipe-laying in a loyalist area of Belfast.
Mr Gary McMichael of the Ulster Democratic Party, which is linked to the UFF, said he did not know who was responsible for the two killings, but said the UFF had "clarified its position". He added: "There are others who have been involved, including the LVF."
The UFF used the LVF as a cover name for its attack on the Clifton Tavern in north Belfast on New Year's Eve, when Eddie Treanor (32) was killed. Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein yesterday accused the UFF of carrying out the latest two murders, saying they had "the hallmark of the UFF stamped all over them and shows that their statement of Friday is not worth the paper it was written on".
The LVF has admitted shooting a Catholic man in Lurgan before 8 a.m. yesterday. The man, who was in his 30s, was hit in the shoulder but was not seriously injured. He was sitting in the cab of his lorry in Ashwood on the Old Portadown Road when a lone gunman approached and fired one shot.
In Carrickfergus in Co Antrim, a pipe bomb was thrown at a house owned by Catholics in the early hours of yesterday morning. It failed to explode and was defused by army bomb disposal experts.
A 20-year-old Derryman was treated for bruising to his head and body yesterday after he was beaten by a number of men who forced their way into his house in the Drummard Park area on Saturday night. He was also ordered to leave the country.