South East Antrim UDA activity is very sinister development

A HOAX UDA bomb scare last Friday was the work of the breakaway South East Antrim UDA unit and was linked to the NI Protocol and marks a significant development in loyalist opposition to the Irish Sea Border. The group is understood to have been responsible for a major security alert targeting north-south train services this week. 

The recent SEA UDA hoax alert targeting the north-south rail network is a significant development. 

The loyalist paramilitary group is understood to have been responsible for targeting north-south train services 

The incident took place just days after the UVF were blamed for ordering a terrifried worker to drive a hoax device to a peace-building gathering in north Belfast. Irish government minister Simon Coveney was forced to flee the event held in honour of Nobel peace prize winner John Hume and his wife Pat. 

At a bail hearing linked to the incident on Thursday, a court was told that there had also been a hoax alert at a pub in Warrenpoint, Co Down, last Saturday. 

The Irish News understands that alart was the work of the Mid-Ulster UVF. 

All three hoax alerts came in the same week as loyalists warned that their violent anti-Protocol campaign is set to escalate and that Dublin may even be targeted. 

The recent activity by the two largest factions within Loyalism not only marks an apparent escalation but demonstrates unity of purpose in relation to the Protocol - which puts a border down the Irish Sea. The seemingly shared approach now adopted by militant loyalist groups hasn't always worked or has been apparent as the relationship has ebbed and flowed. 

These are obivious examples of close cooperation between the groups, including the formation of Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) umbrella group in the early 1990s, which that announced their 1994 ceasefire. Another cover group, (the LCC), the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando, was formed in 2015 and continues to exist today. 

In the past the two organisations have also collaborated to smuggle weapons into the north. Despite this, there have been times when tensions between the two factions have exploded with deadly consequences. Feuds between the UVF and UDA date back to the 1970s. A fall-out over whether loyalist controlled drinking clubs should stay open or be closed during the 1974 Ulster Workers' Council Strike resulted in several members of both organisations being shot dead and was marked by a number of bitter bar-room brawls. 

Another round of violence erupted between both groups in 2000 when members of Johnny Adair's UDA (UFF) 'C' Company went on the rampage in the Lower Shankill area attacking homes belonging to families aligned to the UVF. 

Again, several people lost their lives during a vicious round of killing before peace was brokered. 

Academic Dr Aaron Edwards, pictured below, who is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, believes that in terms of recent activity the two paramilitary groups will be working separately. 

"Based on over 50 years of paramilitary activity and the history of paramilitary activity in *orthern Ireland it's unlikely that those groups will be working together," he said. He said that while the groups "might be working to the same agenda" they are "separate groups with their own identities". 

Dr Edwards, who is the author of UVF: Behind The Mask, said there is a danger that the paramilitary organisations could be in competition. "I think dangerously in *orthern Ireland what we might see transpire, if this escalates any further, is what they, loyalist paramilitaries, in the past call regimental competition," he said. 

"So if you believe there are two separate violent groups and they have their own identity, they have their own mystique, they have their own brand and that they try out do one another. "We shouldn't see it automatically as the two groups working in conjunction with one another, that said, it's for the police to give that assessment in terms of what they think going on."

To date neither of the groups behind the hoax alerts have claimed responsibility. In recent years breakaway factions have emerged from both the UVF and UDA that are not affiliated to the LCC. These include the South East Antrim UDA, while it has also been claimed that the north Antrim and Derry UDA faction is also beyond its influence. 

Other UDA areas said to be out of step with the main organisation include units in south Derry and Tyrone. 

It has previously been suggested that the UVF in Mid-Ulster is also divided between those linked to initiatives backed by the Shankill Road leadership and others who refuse to engage with them. Dr Edwards said the leadership of both organisations need to make their position clear. 

"Certainly, if there's evidence of both the UVF and UDA operating we need to ask 'what part of those organisations:? 

"Because, as we know, there are mainstream and dissident elements within both those groups and there's questions around the so called 'peace leadership' and what their thinking. "But that's impossible to know without them commenting on the record or off the record."

With many thanks to The Irish News and Connla Young for the original publication.