SINN Fein has urged nationalists to be vigilant following warnings that the loyalist ceasefire might be at breaking point. A loyalist source told The Irish Times on Friday that if anyone was killed in another IRA attack in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Freedom Fighters would hit back "big time".
A Sinn Fein councillor in north Belfast, Mr Joe Austin, said that it was not a new threat. Loyalist paramilitaries in July had killed a Catholic taxi driver, Michael McGoldrick, in July in Lurgan, Co Armagh, he said.
They had also bombed two republicans last month and had shot more than 12 people in recent months. "The reality is that there is no loyalist ceasefire," he said.