LOYALIST paramilitary commanders maintained their silence after reportedly meeting yesterday ass tension spread in the North following the death of a British soldier critically injured in the IRA bomb attack in Lisburn last Monday.
Fears of retaliation remained high as no statement was forthcoming from the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC), the umbrella body that can decide to maintain or break the loyalist ceasefire which is two years old tomorrow.
Meanwhile the political temperature was raised still further after the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, launched a bitter attack on the IRA and on Mr Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president. Mr Adams retorted, in a statement last night, that personalised attacks were no substitute for real politics.
There were widespread expressions of anger at the IRA and sympathy for the family of the soldier who died, Warrant Officer James Bradwell, (43), a married man with three children whose home is in Gateshead, in northeast England.
Although he had served 19 years in the British army, Mr Bradwell was on his first tour of duty in Northern Ireland. He is the first soldier to be killed by terrorist action there since before the IRA called its ceasefire in August, 1994.
Mr Bradwell, who was attached to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, was thought to have been less than 30 feet from the first of the two car bombs which the IRA exploded in Thiepval Barracks.
He had multiple injuries and more than 50 per cent burns to his body. His wife was at his bedside in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, when he died shortly before 7 a.m. yesterday.
A total of 31 military and civilian personnel was injured in the double bombing. A man who was arrested earlier this week and questioned about the attack was released from police custody yesterday without charge.
The DUP yesterday called on the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to "close the door on the terrorists" and said there could be no room "for them or their political front men" in the political process.
The Alliance Party deputy leader, Mr Seamus Close, also condemned Sinn Fein for "continuing their friendship with thugs and killers."
Mr Major told the Tory party conference in Bournemouth that the IRA was wrong in its belief that Britain could be deflected by terrorism. "No one will take Sinn Fein seriously ever again until they show a serious commitment to end violence for good," he said.
Mr Adams, in a statement last night, expressed sympathy with the families of Mr Bradwell and 12-year-old Darren Murray, a Catholic boy who died yesterday from injuries received when he was accidentally run over during a confrontation between nationalist and loyalist youths in Portadown, Co Armagh, earlier this week.
The Sinn Fein president said the deaths were "a sad reminder of the effect of conflict". It had been the failure of real politics since last February which had brought us to this dangerous point, he said.
He added: "Political leaders and armed groups must take responsibility for their actions and the consequences of those actions. I have never shirked mine. Mr Major cannot evade his responsibility and he must bear the lion's share of blame for the current difficulties."
There was a significant increase in British army mobile and foot patrols, and frequent RUC check-points, in Belfast and throughout the North yesterday as the future intentions of both the IRA and the loyalist paramilitaries remained unknown.
The Presbyterian minister, the Rev Roy Magee, who has acted as intermediary with the armed loyalist groups in the past, said he believed they were under great pressure to retaliate for the IRA attacks.
Asked on RTE Radio if they might direct any action at the Republic, he said: "I would be very much afraid that that is where the focus could centre".