Nine men were arrested today in a major new PSNI anti-drugs offensive.

A consignment of loyalist guns has been destroyed in the view of arms inspectors in the North, it was confirmed tonight.

Loyalist paramilitaries pipe bombed a home in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim as part of an intensifying attempt to rout a rival faction, it was claimed today.

Senior Ulster Defence Association members profited from crime just weeks before the British government pledged £1.2m (€1.76m) to the loyalist group’s plan to wean its communities off paramilitarism, it emerged today.

Loyalists revealed today that they want more than £8m (€11.8m) from the British government to transform a notorious paramilitary unit into a peacetime community development body.

Tensions are high within loyalist factions in the North, after the UDA has failed to come to a decision on the fate of two north Belfast brothers.

More than 2,000 people have been questioned about the murder of a loyalist paramilitary chief in Belfast a year ago, police said tonight.

Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair’s exiled wife and his close associate John White must never be allowed back to Northern Ireland, loyalists said last night.

The funeral takes place in the North later today of one of the two loyalists murdered on Saturday.

Two men were today being questioned about the murder of top loyalist John Gregg.

THE murder of UDA boss John Gregg was set up by other Glasgow Rangers supporters, it was claimed last night.

Two men were arrested today by detectives investigating the murders of UDA boss John Gregg and another man in the docks area of Belfast, police said.

Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair is the most feared loyalist paramilitary in Northern Ireland with a reputation which sends shudders through the hearts and minds of nationalists and republicans in his home city of Belfast.

The loyalist Ulster Democratic Party has reportedly split today, with up to 14 of its 50 branches opting to go it alone because of their opposition to the Good Friday Agreement.

All but one battalion of the largest loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland now opposes the peace process, it is claimed.