RUC sources believe that members of the two main loyalist paramilitary organisations, the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force, were heavily involved in rioting and arson attacks during some of the main loyalist disturbances during the week.
The UDA, which imported a stock of sub-machine-guns after calling its 1994 ceasefire, was said to be behind a number of gun attacks in west Belfast and in the Rathcoole estate on the northern outskirts of the city.
The UVF was held responsible for the spate of blast bomb attacks in Carrickfergus on Tuesday night and probably provided the blast bomb which was thrown into RUC lines at Drumcree yesterday morning, injuring three officers. The UVF is the only loyalist group with bomb-making skills.
The other small loyalist group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, although ostensibly also on ceasefire, was evident at the front of the Drumcree rioting. It was probably an LVF member who threw the blast bomb, according to an RUC officer.
However, despite the dramatic television footage and reports during the week, there have been no deaths from the loyalist street violence.
The violence statistics released by the RUC on Wednesday revealed a total of blast bombs, petrol bombs, shootings and property damage since Sunday which would not have been particularly unusual for a single night's violence at previous times of high tension in the North.
The RUC reported 12 shooting incidents, 25 blast bombs thrown, 412 petrol bombings, 136 vehicles hijacked, 93 properties damaged and 92 people arrested.
Some of the worst acts occurred in out of the way Protestant areas, mainly in counties Down and Antrim, where there are still small numbers of Catholics. By Wednesday morning, the RUC reported attacks on 73 houses. Most of these houses were owned by Catholics, some in mixed marriages, and a few were attacks on RUC members' homes or on the homes of Protestants who have earned the wrath of mobs for some reason.
The attacks on Catholics began on Sunday night when a number of Catholic homes and businesses were attacked in Antrim town and in Coleraine, Co Derry. On Wednesday, a large gang of masked men, some carrying firearms, entered the small, mainly Catholic Collingwood private housing development, which is surrounded by large, workingclass Protestant estates, in Craigavon and threw petrol bombs at houses.
There were more serious attacks on houses in Antrim and in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim. Attempts were made to burn primary schools in Carrickfergus and Lisburn, Co Antrim. On Thursday, Catholic businesses in Kilkeel, Co Down, were attacked and burned.
Church property was again attacked after the previous week's co-ordinated arson attacks on 10 churches, which other loyalists said was the work of the LVF.
Attempts by loyalist figures, like Pastor Kenny McClinton, who is associated with the LVF, to ascribe attacks to mysterious loyalist groups were dismissed later in the week by the RUC. Mr McClinton said he was aware of groups such as the "Protestant Freedom Fighters and the Ulster Loyalist Action Force".
These are similar to the covernames used by the UDA and UVF when they carried out sectarian
murders in the early 1970s. The UDA averted proscription in 1993 by claiming its sectarian killings in the name of the Ulster Freedom Fighters. Although the UFF is a non-existent organisation, its name became so frequently used that it was adopted by the latest generation of UDA recruits who now say they are UFF members.
The UVF used the alias of the Protestant Action Force during the 1970s and 1980s to divert attention from itself. There has never been a PAF or UFF wing in the loyalist wings of the Maze prison.
There are some indications that violence by UVF and UDA members might now be abating after appeals by prisoners' groups and a warning by UDA prisoners that any members jailed for violence over Drumcree would not be allowed on their wings, and thus not liable for early release.
A group which emerged in a local newspaper report during the week, calling itself the Ulster Protestant Association, was said by loyalist sources to be a covername adopted by members of the Spirit of Drumcree, the dissident Orange group behind the Drumcree blockades.
It was members of the Spirit of Drumcree who were behind the roadblocks and incidents such as the blockading of the Catholic village of Dunloy, north Antrim, on Wednesday night. This group has attracted support from disaffected young Protestants in provincial towns where the main loyalist paramilitaries have never had a presence.
Loyalists in Belfast also said the gangs who petrol-bombed Catholic houses in some of the smaller towns were probably from the ranks of this loose alliance of provincial ultra-loyalists.
This seems to be supported by reports from Catholic priests who serve small Catholic communities. One Co Antrim priest, who wished to remain anonymous, said parishioners told him that most of the attackers lived in their estates and they knew them. In all the areas where Catholic homes had been attacked there had been assaults on almost every previous July 12th.
At the start of the Troubles, when the Catholic church was built in Harryville, Ballymena, there were 400 families in the parish.
There are now, said a local priest, only 20 Catholic homes and most of these are occupied by elderly people. The fact that there were few attacks on Catholics in Ballymena, Co Antrim, was put down to the fact that there are almost no Catholics left.
The worst example of the eradication of a Catholic community is in east Antrim, where there were 40,000 Catholics at the outset of the Troubles. There are now only 2,000 Catholics in the Carrickfergus parish and very few between it and north Belfast.
The polarising and embittering effect of such "cleansing" has been seen in the large numbers of Provisional IRA and other republican militants who joined out of a sense of injustice and revenge-seeking. One of the Catholics intimidated out of his family home in east Antrim in the early 1970s was the first H-Block hungerstriker to die, Bobby Sands.
