Northern Ireland loyalists should decommission their weapons and disband their organisations, one of their most notorious former leaders said last night.
Former Ulster Defence Association (UDA) commander Johnny Adair was forced out of the organisation in 2002 after a dispute.
He said last night IRA disarmament should force his former colleagues to follow suit.
Johnny Adair in Belfast in 2002
"The UDA are just a thuggish, criminal organisation. They don't need to be there, they need to go away," he told the BBC's Radio Five. "There is no threat to the community, there is no threat to Ulster, so therefore go away."
Adair served two-thirds of a 16-year term for directing terrorism through the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), a cover name for the UDA.
He was first released after the 1998 Belfast Agreement but was later sent back to prison after becoming involved in criminality again.
The UFF targeted Catholics, but Adair insisted that only republicans and sympathisers were attacked during the years of violence.
"My message to the people of Northern Ireland is enjoy the peace, and I hope it lasts. To my enemies, watch this space, I will return," he added.
He is living in Scotland and has also been based in Bolton in the north of England.
Adair was commander of C Company in west Belfast's loyalist heartland of the Shankill Road. C Company was behind around 40 murders in the Belfast area, but Adair claimed he had never murdered anybody or dealt drugs and said he was virtually penniless.