Hardly a day passes in the North now without a loyalist attack. The vast majority are random. Only two factors unite the victims: most are working-class and all are Catholics.
They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, as a cursory glance at some of this month's incidents show. A Catholic from Co Derry was shot while working on a building site in a loyalist area of Carrickfergus, Co Antrim. "He was just trying to earn a decent living," says SDLP councillor Patsy McGlone, who knows the victim well.
A Catholic nurse returning from a rock concert was beaten badly while walking home through the loyalist Donegall Road area of south Belfast. Two 11-year-old boys were fortunate to escape injury when gunmen opened fire outside a betting shop in Ardoyne, north Belfast.
According to RUC statistics, there have been 32 bombings in recent months. Most were admitted by three new dissident loyalist groups - 11 by the Orange Volunteers and nine by the Red Hand Defenders, who also were responsible for a murder. The Protestant Liberation Army admitted responsibility for two shootings and an arson attack. The other bombings were unadmitted, but all are understood to have been carried out by loyalists.
Sinn Fein says there were 53 loyalist attacks in the first four months of this year. And it says that in the year to April, loyalists carried out 10 killings, 19 shootings, 29 grenade and blast bomb attacks and 48 assaults.
They have intimidated 276 families from their homes, attempted five abductions, and made 231 attacks on Catholic property including churches, homes and schools, according to Sinn Fein. The worst affected areas have been north Belfast, Co Antrim and Mid-Ulster. Sinn Fein statistics show no sectarian attacks in Co Fermanagh in the first four months of this year.
In many of the attacks there is no statement of admission from a paramilitary group, but of those admitted most are in the name of the Red Hand Defenders or the Orange Volunteers, two organisations heavily influenced by Protestant fundamentalism.
"They believe very firmly in a Protestant state for a Protestant people," says a loyalist source. "Their aim is to heighten tensions in the community to such a level that the peace process collapses. They also hope to goad the Provos back to war."
Loyalist sources say while these dissident groups began as separate organisations they have moved closer together in recent months and have a close relationship with anti-peace process elements in the UDA/UFF. Members of the latter organisation are believed to have made the bomb with which the Red Hand Defenders killed the Lurgan solicitor, Ms Rosemary Nelson.
The Combined Loyalist Military Command - which combined the UVF, UDA/UFF, and Red Hand Commando - has effectively collapsed, according to loyalist sources who predict a realignment.
"I think this will be along the lines of greater unity among the Red Hand Defenders, Orange Volunteers, Loyalist Volunteer Force elements and the UFF," says one source.
The UVF is widely believed to have been responsible for the murder of dissident loyalist Mr Frankie Curry in March. He was a close associate of a leading UFF figure and relations between the UVF and the UDA/UFF deteriorated rapidly after the shooting.
Condemning the recent increase in loyalist violence, a senior RUC spokesman said: "All terrorist attacks are equally disgraceful. They bring life-long heartbreak to the families of victims but they are in addition an attack on the very fabric of society."
The random nature of the attacks made them "notoriously difficult to prevent". But, he said, several individuals had been charged over sectarian violence and the RUC was totally committed to bringing all those responsible to justice.
In the nationalist community, however, the attacks have hardened attitudes. "These attacks are happening day and daily and nobody seems to care," says a community activist on the peaceline in north Belfast.
"If it was the other way round and republicans were bombing and shooting loyalists to this extent, there would be a huge hue and cry. It's only a miracle that apart from Rosemary Nelson no other nationalist has been killed this year.
"But there is only so much a community can take. If loyalists do succeed in killing Catholics in north Belfast then I think the Provos won't be able to keep a lid on it. You mightn't hear it reported in the media but people in areas like this are very, very angry."