A number of diverse loyalist splinter groups have been engaged in attacks ranging from sending crude bombs through the post to making gun attacks on Catholic bars.
One group, the largest, is the Loyalist Volunteer Force set up by Billy Wright in the Portadown area, and this has been responsible for a number of murderous attacks, including the killing of the Protestant and Catholic friends, Philip Allen and Damien Kelly, in a Poyntzpass bar on March 4th last. However, according to senior loyalist sources, the growth of the LVF has been checked and, with the loss of its founder, it may be in retreat.
The LVF began life as a maverick Ulster Volunteer Force unit in Portadown which under Wright's guidance grew in stature on the loyalist extremes.
However, according to sources a key UVF unit in north Armagh, some of whose members live in the Markethill area, have remained loyal to the UVF leadership and are steadfastly opposed to the Portadown LVF.
The North Armagh UVF is said to regard the LVF as ill-disciplined, highly violent and criminal. They point to the case of David Keys, the loyalist who was recruited to the LVF, and who was arrested for the murder of Mr Trainor and Mr Allen.
Mr Keys had previously been shot and seriously injured by the UVF in Belfast after threatening one of its leading figures. He was also an RUC informer. When LVF prisoners in the Maze discovered this they subjected him to gruesome torture before cutting his throat and wrists.
The fact that one of the LVF's victims in the Poyntzpass attack was a Protestant also contributed to the diminution of the LVF's standing. It has carried out no serious attacks since.
The other dissident loyalist elements have yet to develop a public profile. One group is said to be called the North Antrim Loyalists, and this may have been behind a number of bomb attacks on Catholic homes which have caused some damage but no injuries.
The unclaimed murder of a Catholic man, Mr Fergal McCusker, in Magherafelt on January 18th, was carried out by some group operating in this general area.
Some unknown loyalist group has also been posting crude parcel bombs, apparently to nationalists, and a few of these have exploded in the postal system. This group might be based in east Antrim, an area which has thrown up extreme loyalist figures in the past.
One senior loyalist figure said there were suspicions that elements within the Ulster Defence Association might be operating to their own agenda. The leadership of the UDA has, in the main, supported the talks process, but it is not a cohesive organisation, and fringe elements might be engaging in freelance violence.
Of the 13 Catholic killings in the North since last December, five can be firmly attributed to the LVF and eight to elements within the UDA, some of whom appear to have broad sympathies with the extreme views of the late Billy Wright.
The situation in loyalist paramilitarism also has some parallels with the situation on the republican side. The main bodies of loyalist paramilitarism in the urban centres of Belfast and Derry, the UDA and UVF, have remained supportive of their respective political leaders in the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party.
The UDA, whose political wing was expelled from the talks after it was conclusively shown to have murdered Catholics in Belfast in February, has remained quiet since then, even though the Provisional IRA shot dead one of its leading members, Robert Dougan, on February 10th.
Both the UDA and the UVF have, in fact, been engaged in trying to disrupt anti-talks meetings and activities organised by the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party. Senior loyalists say both the UDA and UVF are agreed on the principle that their positions will not be usurped by an emergent third force in loyalism.
Both broadly support the political stance taken by the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble. This is something of a historic anomaly as it has usually been the role of loyalist paramilitary figures to oppose those unionist leaders inclined to show compromise in dealing with the Republic.
As with the republicans, the real pressure on the "doves" in the loyalist paramilitary associations will come after the signing of a deal. The loyalist ceasefire of October 1994 was predicated, in Gusty Spence's words, on the condition that "the Union is safe".
If the agreement is construed as disadvantageous to or even a threat to the Union with Britain, then the mainline loyalist paramilitary leaders, who have so far mainly worked hard to hold on to their ceasefires, will come under pressure to adopt the traditional stance of attacking those they see as threatening the union, including those within the unionist family who are seen as prepared to sell out to nationalism.