UDA 1971-2003: Key events and dates of an organisation associated with some of the worst atrocities of the conflict in the North.
September 1971: UDA began life as an umbrella group for Protestant vigilantes around Belfast, with Charles Harding-Smith (left) as its leader. By 1972, its membership reached 40,000. With its sister paramilitary group the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the UDA regularly killed Catholics and was involved in the drugs trade, the black market, prostitution and racketeering.
June 1973: Senator Paddy Wilson of the SDLP and Ms Irene Andrews were murdered. John White, later chairman of the UDP served 14 years for the murders.
May 1974: UDA played a central role in the Ulster Workers Council strike which led to the collapse of a power sharing administration at Stormont headed by Ulster Unionist leader Brian Faulkner and involving members of the nationalist SDLP and cross community Alliance Party. The strike paralysed Northern Ireland, cutting off electricity supplies and forcing unionist members to resign from the executive.
March 1984: UDA targeted Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in a gun attack in Belfast city centre.
December 1987: UDA leader, John McMichael killed by an IRA bomb.
February 1989: Belfast solicitor, Pat Finucane (right) murdered. Nationalists believe the UDA was also used by British Army intelligence and members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary for the murder of Mr Finucane.
February 1992: Members of UDA's south Belfast brigade killed five Catholic men - ranging in age from a 15-year-old to a pensioner - in Graham's bookmakers on the Ormeau Road
August 1992: UDA finally declared illegal by the British government following a marked increase in sectarian killings.
August 1994: IRA declared ceasefire.
October 1994: Combined Loyalist Paramilitary Command declared ceasefire and offer an apology to victims of loyalist violence.
January 1996: IRA ceasefire ends with Canary Wharf bombing. Loyalist leadership appeals to paramilitaries not to retaliate.
December 1997: Death of LVF leader Billy Wright in the Maze Prison at the hands of the INLA is followed by a UDA killing spree. Then Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam met UDA leaders including Johnny Adair in the Maze to persuade them to reinstate their ceasefire. The organisation relented and the UDP was involved in the Good Friday agreement talks.
April 1998: Belfast Agreement signed.
May 1998: UDA suffers a major blow with the failure of its political wing, the Ulster Democratic Party, to win a seat in the Assembly elections. There is widespread concern that the UDA willl become 'unachored' from the peace process.
August 2000: Johnny Adair's UDA faction in west Belfast clashed with the rival Ulster Volunteer Force. Three people were shot dead in the subsequent feud and hundreds of families forced to leave their homes. Then Northern Secretary Mr Peter Mandelson returned Adair to prison
November 2001: UDP dissolved after limping along for three years without representation at the Assembly. The UDP leader Mr Gary McMichael held that the party should remain committed to the Belfast Agreement while the majority of the membership of the UDA, to whom it offers political advice, now rejects the agreement.
May 2002: Johnny Adair released from prison. Soon after, a feud begins within the ranks of the UDA between Adair's C Company in the lower Shankill and the other brigadiers.
January 2003: Internal feud erupts into murder. Jonathan Stewart was assassinated at a party in north Belfast, reportedly because his uncle had quit Adair's notorious C Company wing. In a revenge strike, drug dealer Roy Green, 32, was gunned down outside a south Belfast pub. Northern Secretary Paul Murphy orders Johnny Adair's re-arrest but his return to prison does not end the feud.
February 2003: John Gregg shot dead as he returned to Belfast docks from attending a Glasgow Rangers match. John White, Johnny Adair's wife Gina and their allies expelled from the lower Shankill by loyalists and flee to Scotland. UDA declares 12-months ceasefire.