Man critical after loyalist feud shooting

A man is critically ill in hospital today after he was shot in what was thought to be part of an escalating loyalist paramilitary feud.

The man, named locally as Alex McKinley, underwent emergency surgery last night following the attack in Belfast.

He was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital after he was hit in the head during a gun attack at Euston Street, off the Woodstock Road in the east of the city just before 9pm.

Earlier, another man escaped injury after a gunman targeted him a few streets away.

With tensions between rival loyalist terror organisations reaching boiling point, a former Belfast Lord Mayor pleaded for more police and army patrols.

Ulster Unionist East Belfast councillor Jim Rodgers said: “The situation is getting completely out of hand, with paramilitary organisations determined to kill each other.

“Every effort must be made to end this and I would urge those involved to sort out their differences through dialogue.”

The festering dispute between Ulster Defence Association members and their rivals in the Loyalist Volunteer Force has erupted into a deadly spate of shootings in recent weeks.

Top LVF man Stephen Warnock was shot dead in Newtownards, Co Down last month.

In a retaliation attack, East Belfast UDA boss Jim Gray escaped death when he was shot in the face days later.

As the internecine war deepened, the UDA then expelled feared terror chief Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair for allegedly siding with the LVF.

Gray was arrested at the weekend following searches in the area but later released without charge.

The police swoop came less than 24 hours after Geoffrey Gray, 41, was shot dead in south-east Belfast.

He is understood to have had links with murdered LVF leader Billy Wright.

Loyalists in east Belfast claimed the situation had reached dangerous new levels.

One UDA source predicted the bloodletting could surpass the shooting war between his organisation as the Ulster Volunteer Force in the summer of 2000 which left seven men dead.

He warned: “This is a major upsurge and it could be even worse than what happened on the Shankill Road two years ago.

“No one is in the mood for talks or negotiations after this.”