Teenagers in Derry who anger loyalist paramilitaries are being told to attend vicious punishment beatings, police claimed today.
Officers are stepping up patrols in the city after a new spate of attacks on youths who fall foul of the terror bosses.
Superintendent Johnny McCarroll said the decision came after the latest victims, aged 19 and 20, were taken to hospital with serious injuries.
"We need to put these people behind bars. This is pure thuggery, it's pure criminality and it's jungle tactics that are being used, he said. "This is horrendous."
Loyalist representatives in the city denied the claims.
Mr Mark Robinson, a spokesman for the Ulster Volunteer Force-linked Progressive Unionist Party, said: "If a paramilitary group told you to turn up for a beating you would get as far away as possible.
"This is absolutely not true and police, or some cowboys among the Protestant community, are doing this for their own gain."
Tensions in Derry were heightened after a pipe bomb attack on a house in the Waterside district on Wednesday was blamed on feuding loyalists.
But a joint statement issued today by the political wings of the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force angrily dismissed claims of a feud.
The declaration by the Progressive Unionist Party and Ulster Political Research Group blamed "reckless" journalism for putting lives at risk. "The PUP and UPRG are totally united in their determination to united loyalism and in fighting our common enemy which is republicanism," it said. "Together we can take on anyone who attempts to oppress our people.
"There is no loyalist feud and the lies which are being printed are part of the republican campaign to divide our people further. They will not succeed."