Feuding loyalists agree truce and blame 'Mad Dog' Adair

A loyalist feud that cost three lives in eight weeks in Belfast was declared to be over yesterday by the two Protestant paramilitary groups involved.

The Ulster Defence Association and the Loyalist Volunteer Force announced, after a series of talks, that they had resolved their differences.

The apparent settlement leaves a major unanswered question, which is the fate of the most notorious loyalist paramilitary figure, Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair.

At the height of the feud, the UDA expelled Mr Adair, accusing him of acting as an agent provocateur, setting the groups at each other's throats. The joint statement settling the feud implicitly criticised him, saying "erroneous, false information" had been furnished to both groups.

Tales abound of large amounts of missing money within the UDA, as well as the recent destruction of what is said to be a brothel run by Adair's unit. In such circumstances, his personal safety appears to be at risk.

During the feud, three loyalists were killed in east Belfast, including an LVF drug dealer, Stephen Warnock, who was an Adair associate. Shortly afterwards, the LVF shot and wounded the East Belfast UDA commander Jim Gray. Two other deaths followed.

In yesterday's statement, the LVF declared that it "totally accepts that the UDA in east Belfast had no involvement in the Warnock murder".

Last year, Britain ruled the UDA's ceasefire, called in 1994, had broken down after it was blamed for pipe bomb attacks on the homes of Catholics.

The LVF, an offshoot of the Ulster Volunteer Force, was also ruled to have broken its ceasefire last year after it was blamed for killing the journalist Martin O'Hagan.

Yesterday, the joint statement said the organisations had resolved their differences, saying intermediaries had been appointed to prevent any further conflict between the groups.

Police recently set up a special unit aimed at coping with the feud, which resulted in at least nine shooting attacks.

The homes of two police officers in the loyalist Co Antrim town of Larne were attacked overnight. In the first incident, windows were smashed by paint bombs and the windscreen of a car was smashed.

Three minutes later, a short distance away, a second officer's home was attacked.