British intelligence has urged the Ulster Defence Association to regroup under one supreme commander, Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams claimed today.
In a newspaper article reviewing the crisis in the peace process, Mr Adams alleged the British government was aware of the plan.
Mr Adams also claimed intelligence chiefs knew which loyalist paramilitaries killed north Belfast teenager Gerard Lawlor last month.
And in an attack on Mr David Trimble, Mr Adams predicted the Ulster Unionist leader would "breathe life" next month into a "manufactured, serialised crisis" in the peace process, even if it created a climate in which anti-Belfast Agreement paramilitaries could thrive.
In an article for the Irish Voicenewspaper, Mr Adams wrote: "For the last few months, the UDA has been actively recruiting and reorganising.
"There is an effort to place the entire organisation under one supreme commander.
"The British government know this. Indeed, in my view, British intelligence agencies are actively encouraging this."
Mr Adams claimed a recent firebomb and gun attack on Catholic homes on the outskirts of north Belfast was an attempt to "divert UDA energies" from a feud with the rival Ulster Volunteer Force.
But senior loyalist Mr John White, who chaired the UDA's political wing before it was disbanded, dismissed Mr Adams' assessment as "rubbish".
Mr White said: “There are six brigadiers in that organisation and I don't think any of them would want to relinquish their power base because it would be undermining their position.”
Nationalists and republicans have accused the UDA of orchestrating this summer's disturbances - an allegation which has been directed in turn at the IRA by unionists.
The UDA admitted murdering Gerard Lawlor on July 21st in the Whitewell area of Belfast after a series of failed murder bids in the north of the city, sparked by a republican gun attack along the peaceline in Ardoyne which wounded a loyalist.
The group claimed the shooting was a "measured, military response".
Mr Adams called on the Police Service of Northern Ireland to publish the forensic history of the gun used to kill the 19-year-old father-of-one and other weapons used in recent loyalist attacks.
PA