Loyalists in Northern Ireland who shot a policeman should put their arsenal beyond reach before there is more bloodshed, the clergyman who verified IRA decommissioning said last night.
Former president of the Methodist Church in Ireland the Rev Harold Good warned the Ulster Defence Association it was putting its own community at risk after a feud in southeast Antrim exploded into violence on Saturday night .
A part-time policeman intervening in a stand-off between 150 people at Castlemara Drive, Carrickfergus, was shot in the back and police have warned there could be retaliation.
A civilian was stabbed during violent clashes and three men were arrested in a car - with an array of batons, CS spray and crossbows - suspected of terrorism.
Mr Good said: "The war is over, people have aspirations and those channels are open to everyone in a free democratic society . . . I know they have difficulties, as republicans did, persuading their fellow travellers and I do know that the leadership of the loyalist organisations would like to work towards that end."
In September 2005 Mr Good was an independent witness when the IRA destroyed guns after declaring their armed campaign over.
Police said the injured officer, married with children and 30 years' experience in the force, had undergone surgery for his wound. Investigators have opened an attempted murder inquiry.
Chief Insp Moore said: "History would tell us that this sort of thing very often leads to retaliation from one side or another.This is a policing matter, the whole community in Northern Ireland has moved on. There are some elements of it who clearly don't want to join us in the 21st century."
Officers were alerted to the trouble when large numbers of vehicles moved in from outside the area.
Northern Ireland Office minister Paul Goggins condemned the attack and said those responsible offered nothing to their own community or anybody else.
On Friday the UDA held a press conference in Larne, Co Antrim, to say that it was ending criminality in southeast Antrim and cracking down on drug peddlers. A new so-called brigadier has been appointed and a political representative from the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) nominated.
Known in the past for factional infighting, the UDA has been linked to drug-dealing and racketeering in Protestant regions.
The NI Assembly is considering whether to hand out a multi-million pound fund to loyalists for "community transformation" to encourage peace negotiations.
Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie, from the SDLP, is consulting ministerial colleagues on the matter but has said any money must be conditional on ending criminality.
She said the UDA needed to realise that money for loyalist communities was conditional upon an end to violence and criminality and evidence of decommissioning of weapons.
UPRG spokesman Frankie Gallagher connected the trouble to a renegade faction of the UDA.
"The UPRG would . . . totally condemn the criminal acts last night by a minority of people who carried out intimidation against people in the Larne and Carrickfergus areas and shot a policeman in the back."