Timeline: Loyalist feud

1912: The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is formed to oppose Home Rule.

1966: The UVF is banned after killing members of the IRA

1971: The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is formed as an umbrella organisation for loyalist "defence" groups.

Drawing its support and membership from traditional protestant working class areas including Belfast and Lisburn, it organises along military lines.

1974: Secretary of State Merlyn Rees lifts the ban on the UVF, hoping its members can be persuaded to turn to politics.

1975: The UVF is banned again amid a spate of sectarian killings.

1978: The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) is founded in the Shankill Road area of Belfast - with links to the UVF.

1992: Secretary of State Sir Patrick Mayhew bans the UDA as it becomes increasingly clear to security forces that its members are carrying out killings using the name of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) as a cover.

1994: Senior UVF man Gusty Spence announces a combined loyalist ceasefire and a Combined Loyalist Military Command embraces the UVF and the UDA/UFF.

A UDA spokesman says it is pro-talks and supports the Good Friday Agreement - but its political wing the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) wins no seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

1997: The Combined Command crumbles and there is a split within the UVF.

The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) is recruited by former UVF commander Billy Wright from among loyalists dissatisfied with the response to the annual stand-off at the Orange Order's Drumcree march in Portadown

December 1997: Billy Wright is murdered in the Maze Prison by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).

January 1998: The loyalist ceasefire is breached when the UFF carry out three killings.

March 1998: The LVF threatens protestants who collude in the peace process.

May 1998: The LVF declares an "unequivocal" ceasefire to encourage people to vote No in the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement.

Its members become eligible for early release, through a handing-in of a small number of weapons as part of the decommissioning process.

December 1999: Tension between loyalist paramilitary organisations is blamed for violence which leaves 12 people injured inside Shamrock Park Social Club in Portadown, County Armagh towards the end of an Irish League Premiership game between Portadown and rivals Glenavon

January 2000: UVF Portadown commander Richard Jameson is shot dead.

February 2000: Portadown teenagers Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine are found stabbed to death near Tandragee, Co Armagh.

Mr Robb was an associate of Billy Wright, and Johnny Adair attended his funeral.

May 2000: PUP worker Martin Taylor is shot dead in front of his wife in north Belfast.

August 2000: Loyalist gunmen open fire at the Rex bar on the Shankill Road during a paramilitary parade.

Sixteen shots are fired into a house on Amblseside Street next door to the family home of senior PUP politician Billy Hutchinson.

The homes of Gusty Spence and another senior PUP member are among 14 damaged during disturbances in the north and west of Belfast and in the towns of Larne, Carrickfergus and Ballymena in County Antrim.

Jackie Coulter, a senior Ulster Defence Association member, and Bobby Mahood are shot dead outside a bookmakers on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast.

September 2000: Two hundred families are intimidated out of the Shankill area of Belfast.

October 2000: Four men are shot dead and one seriously wounded in the north of Belfast in a dispute between local factions of the two loyalist organisations.

November 2000: The total number of people threatened out of their homes since the feuding began reaches 603.