A hitherto moribund loyalist paramilitary body, the Orange Volunteers, has staged an armed show of strength for the media and threatened to murder freed IRA prisoners whom the organisation has described as "fair game" for assassination.
The organisation, which has hardly figured in news reports since the mid-1970s, has threatened to wage a campaign of violence against Sinn Fein, the IRA and "the enemies of Ulster". It accused the UVF and UDA of selling out and claimed to have support throughout the North.
Eight members of the self-styled Orange Volunteers wearing balaclavas and armed with a sawn-off shotgun, handguns, rifles, a sub-machinegun and grenades, posed for photographs at an undisclosed location in Northern Ireland.
The group made its show of strength to a UTV journalist, Ivan Little, after first hooding the reporter so that he could not identify the location.
A spokesman for the organisation claimed it had carried out attacks on a number of Catholic businesses at the end of October. The RUC said the only report it had at the time was of a number of shots being fired at a pub on the Colinglen Road in nationalist west Belfast.
The attack happened on the night a Catholic man, Mr Brian Service, was shot dead. Another loyalist group calling itself the Red Hand Defenders said it had murdered Mr Service and also said it was behind the Colinglen Road attack.
At the same time the Orange Volunteers also said it was responsible for the pub attack, although it is unclear whether there is a link between the Red Hand Defenders and the Orange Volunteers.
In a separate development yesterday, police investigating Mr Service's murder have uncovered six hand grenades and six detonators at a mission hall in the loyalist Woodvale area of Belfast.
A man was arrested in connection with the find. A police source said that the grenades were understood to be linked to the Red Hand Defenders.
Before issuing its statement to Mr Little on Thursday night, the Orange Volunteers held a Bible reading, taking a passage from the Book of Deuteronomy.
The group completed its business with prayers led by what the spokesman called the group's chaplain. He would not say whether the "chaplain" was a Protestant minister.
The organisation also produced a "covenant" setting out its aims. "We are defenders of the reformed faith. Our members are practising Protestant worshippers," the spokesman said. "We are prepared to defend our people and if it comes to the crunch we will assassinate the enemies of Ulster," the statement added. "Ordinary Catholics have nothing to fear from us. But the true enemies will be targeted, and that's a lot wider than just Sinn Fein and the IRA," it said.
The spokesman reading the statement warned of future attacks on IRA prisoners recently released early under the Belfast Agreement. "This organisation cannot allow republican prisoners to walk free with impunity."
