N Ireland Protestant paramilitaries end feud

BELFAST- A murderous feud between rival Protestant paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland which claimed four lives during the past four months has ended, a statement from negotiators said on Sunday.

The feud was called off after a weeks of talks between the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) brokered by a group of community and church activists in Belfast.

"Those initiating the process had the encouragement of many within political and community life and the prayer support of individuals and churches," the Reverend Mervyn Gibson, a spokesman for the negotiators, said in a statement.

"We now believe that the feud has permanently ended."

The power struggle between the larger and longer established UVF and the breakaway LVF saw the shooting dead of four men by the UVF since July and the exiling by the group of suspected LVF members from Protestant areas of the British-ruled province.

Irish media said the LVF was expected to announce plans to disband within days.

Pressure has mounted on pro-British Protestant loyalists -- so-called because of their fierce allegiance to the British crown -- to lay down their arms since the Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrilla group said earlier this year it was ending its 30-year armed campaign against British rule.

Last month, an independent arms watchdog said the IRA had scrapped its entire arsenal of illegal weapons.

The LVF was set up in the mid-1990s by ousted UVF member Billy "King Rat" Wright, later shot dead by Irish republicans in Belfast's Maze Prison.

The group, responsible for a number of sectarian murders, has also been heavily involved in drug dealing in the province.

- REUTERS