The PSNI have arrested two men in connection with their investigation into a murder attempt on senior loyalist Mark Haddock on Tuesday.
One man was detained this morning in the greater Belfast area, and sources claimed he was a former associate of the man who survived an assassination attempt on the outskirts of the city on Tuesday. A second man was later arrested.
Haddock (36) was hit six times when he was ambushed getting out of his car at Doagh, but he is off the critically ill list.
He is believed to have been shot by the Ulster Volunteer Force, and sources claimed today that the man who ordered the shooting has fled the area where he was once based.
Haddock from Mount Vernon, north Belfast, was on bail awaiting a judge's verdict in a Crown Court trial in which he was accused of the attempted murder of a nightclub doorman who was attacked on the Monkstown estate, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, in December 2002.
He is also at the centre of an investigation by the Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan, whose officers are looking into claims of collusion linked to a string of murders. A report is with the Public Prosecution Service.