Page "Ulster Volunteer Force" Paragraph 36

In the 1980s, the UVF was greatly reduced by a series of police informers.

The damage from security service informers started in 1983 with " supergrass " Joseph Bennett's information which led to the arrest of fourteen senior figures.

In 1984, they attempted to kill the northern editor of the Sunday World, Jim Campbell after he had exposed the paramilitary activities of Mid-Ulster brigadier Robin Jackson.

By the mid 1980s, a Loyalist paramilitary-style organisation called Ulster Resistance was formed on 10 November 1986 by Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party ( DUP ), Peter Robinson of the DUP, and Ivan Foster.

The initial aim of Ulster Resistance was to bring an end to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Loyalists were successful in importing arms into Northern Ireland.

The weapons were Palestine Liberation Organisation arms captured by the Israelis, sold to Armscor, the South African state-owned company which, in defiance of the 1977 United Nations arms embargo, set about making South Africa self-sufficient in military hardware.

The arms were divided between the UVF, the UDA ( the largest loyalist group ) and Ulster Resistance.