PROTESTANT FEUDS SPARK BELFAST VIOLENCE

Officials Say Battle For Control Of Drug Trafficking, Not Politics, Is To
Blame In Deaths

LONDON -- A Belfast man gunned down late Wednesday was the third victim this
week of a feud among Protestant paramilitary groups that has brought British
troops back onto the streets of Northern Ireland, officials said Thursday.

The police, who said they arrested six men after the killing and seized guns
and ammunition, identified the latest victim as Samuel Rocket, 22. He was
shot by masked men who burst into the living room of his home in full view
of his partner and a 12-month-old baby and opened fire ``several times at
close range,'' a police spokesman said.

The killing happened hours before the coffin of Bobby Mahood, 48, one of two
men killed earlier this week, was carried aloft through Belfast's Shankill
Road area, a Protestant stronghold, followed by sobbing relatives and
hundreds of others.

The deaths stem from rivalries between the Ulster Volunteer Force, with
which police said Rocket's family was associated, and two other allied
groups, the Ulster Defense Association and the Ulster Freedom Fighters.

Police blamed the killings of Mahood and a second man, Jackie Coulter, on
the Ulster Volunteer Force. Coulter's funeral is set for today.

Although the loyalist groups are all part of the Protestant movement that
wants Northern Ireland to remain a part of Britain, there is a widespread
perception that the rivalries are fueled by a battle for Belfast's illicit
drug traffic.

``Less and less does it have anything to do with political considerations,''
said Ken Maginnis, a representative of the dominant Protestant group, the
Ulster Unionists.

The latest killing came despite efforts by the British authorities to clamp
down on paramilitary leaders. British troops were ordered onto the streets
late Monday after a weekend of violence culminated in the killings of Mahood
and Coulter.

Tuesday, British officials ordered the re-arrest of Johnny Adair, a
paramilitary leader linked to the Ulster Defense Association, who had been
released in September 1999 under a form of parole set out by the province's
peace agreement. The agreement permits the authorities to re-arrest people
they regard as instigators of violence.

Adair served 5 1/2 years of a 16-year term on terrorism charges. His
supporters said Thursday that he planned to appeal his new arrest.

British officials have said they do not regard this week's bloodshed as
signifying the breakdown of the cease-fire underpinning the 1998 peace
agreement. But politicians on both sides of the sectarian divide said
Thursday that rising levels of violence could jeopardize the fragile broader
peace between Catholics and Protestants.

``The history of the North is that when these dynamics are unleashed within
loyalism, the Catholic community ends up carrying the brunt of it,'' said
Mitchel McLaughlin, chair of Sinn Fein, the political voice of the Irish
Republican Army.

And Chris McGimpsey, an Ulster Unionist leader, said, ``This could
completely destabilize the whole peace process.''

Protestant leaders also said they were concerned that the violence could
spiral further as the rival militias seek reprisals. ``Once these funerals
are over, I would be fearful that there would be more attempts to equalize''
the tally of killings, said Maginnis of the Ulster Unionists.