As the political parties linked with Ulster's leading terror groups take part in peace talks, renegade groups who recognise no ceasefire have brought death back to the streets.

Since the prison murder of Billy `King Rat' Wright on December 28, Ulster has seen a sequence of tit-for-tat killings to equal the dark days before the ceasefires.

The escalation of violence claimed two more victims on Monday, bringing the total number of sectarian deaths in the latest round of killing to seven in just three and a half weeks.

Ulster's roll-call of death

December 28 1997 Billy Wright, hardline leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, which rejects the ceasefire, is shot dead by Irish National Liberation Army inmates in the Maze prison, near Belfast.

The LVF retaliates within hours, shooting dead former Republican prisoner Seamus Dillon, who is working as a doorman at the Glengannon Hotel in Dungannon, Co Tyrone. Several other people are injured in the attack.

December 31 1997 Civil servant Eddie Trainor, 31, is killed and five others are injured in a vicious New Year's Eve machine-gun attack on the Clifton Tavern, a north Belfast Catholic pub.

Two gunmen kick in the door and spray bullets across the bar, which is packed with revellers.

The LVF admits responsibility but police suspect mainstream paramilitaries from the Ulster Freedom Fighters, who are supposed to be observing a ceasefire, may have been involved.

January 11 1998 Community worker Terry Enright, 28, who is married to a niece of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, is shot outside the Space Night Club in Belfast city centre, where he is working as a doorman. He dies later in hospital.

Again, the LVF claims responsibility and says in a statement that the killing was in direct response to Wright's murder.

January 18 1998 Catholic Fergal McCusker, 28, is murdered and dumped outside a youth club in Maghera, Co Londonderry.

The LVF admits the murder, saying that Mr McCusker was "a known republican who is engaged in an arms shipment from America" and adding: "This is not the last - lead the way."

Friends of Mr McCusker insist he had no links with republicanism, but was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

January 19 1998 Protestant shopkeeper Jim Guiney, 38, is shot dead in his carpet shop in Dunmurray, south-western Belfast, with the INLA claiming responsibility.

A married man with children, Mr Guiney was well known in local loyalist circles and was believed to be a supporter of the Ulster Democratic Party - the political wing of the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association - and a personal friend of senior UDP leader David Adams.

His killing is followed within 12 hours by the murder of Catholic taxi driver Larry Brennan, 52, outside a company depot in Belfast. Loyalists are believed to be behind Mr Brennan's shooting.
 

Back to top | BBC News Home | BBC Homepage	©