UDA warn Adair to stay out of Ulster
By Brian Rowan
24 April 2006
Exiled loyalist Johnny Adair has been warned not to use the latest infighting within the UDA to make his return to Northern Ireland.
The warning comes from the top of the paramilitary organisation.
“There’s only one place for him,” a senior paramilitary source said - inferring the former Shankill UDA leader will be killed if he tries to come back.
Adair’s closest associates - including the informer John White - were forced out of Belfast during the last UDA feud in 2003.
Later, when he was freed from prison, Adair joined them in England.
The Shankill purge followed the murders of UDA boss John Gregg and loyalist associate Rab Carson - both shot dead by Adair’s men in February 2003.
“The one thing everybody is agreed on is there’s no place for Adair,” a senior UDA leader told the Belfast Telegraph.
“He is sitting back trying to exploit the situation. Out of respect for John Gregg, Rab Carson and the people of south-east Antrim, there’s no way back for him. There’s only one place for him,” the paramilitary leader warned.
The UDA’s Inner Council is still trying to remove the Shoukri brothers - Ihab and Andre - from their leadership positions in north Belfast.
Two thirds of that Inner Council supports that position - the brigadiers Jackie McDonald (south Belfast), Matt Kincaid (west Belfast), Billy McFarland (north Antrim/Londonderry) and the organisation’s leader in east Belfast, but the position of the leader in south-east Antrim is less clear.
He and Tommy Kirkham, of the closely associated Ulster Political Research Group, will be the key voices in determining the direction taken by the terror group in that area.
“The south-east Antrim situation is not resolved,” a source told the Belfast Telegraph. “We are trying to give everybody a chance to make up their own minds.
“With the exception of a few individuals in north Belfast, the door has been closed to nobody.”
Those few individuals include the Shoukris and their closest associates in the north of the city.
“Individuals are being excluded, not areas,” a senior paramilitary source said.
The security assessment is that the majority of the UDA leadership is determined to re-involve the organisation in the peace process, but the credibility of that position has been undermined by the continuing criminality of elements within the paramilitary group.
