MON. FEBRUARY 2, 1998: The loyalist death squad, the LVF, threatened to kill the British supremo in the Six Occupied Counties, Mo Mowlam, putting up 'wanted for murder' posters featuring her picture in a loyalist estate near Antrim.
The LVF, in a coded statement to three Belfast newsrooms, threatened to unleash an "unholy war" unless an alleged threat against Billy Wright's family was withdrawn within 12 hours.
FRI.-SAT. FEBRUARY 6/7, 1998: The RUC erected a one-hundred feet high communications mast at the RUC barracks in Andersonstown in west Belfast.
SAT. FEBRUARY 7, 1998: In Warrington, Co Armagh, masked men claiming to be from the LVF mounted a roadblock stopping 26-County registered cars.
MON. FEBRUARY 9, 1998: Dublin man Anthony Duncan (28) was served with six warrants alleging "conspiracy to cause explosions in the UK" at the Dublin District Court. Duncan from Kippure Park in Finglas was arrested by the political police (Special Branch) Sergeant Martin Lee at 9.10am that morning.
Brendan Campbell (30) was shot dead and a woman accompanying him seriously injured outside Planks restaurant on the Lisburn Road in Belfast. The killing was said to have been carried out by Direct Action Against Drugs (DAAD), a cover-name for the Provisionals' military organisation.
TUES. FEBRUARY 10, 1998: Robert Dougan, a leading Belfast loyalist, believed to be connected with the UDA/UFF British-backed death squad, was shot dead outside Balmoral Textile Factory in the south of the city.
Sectarian slogans were painted by loyalist death squads on the walls, windows, skylights and chimneys of St Columba's primary school in the Newbuildings area outside Derry.
Patrick McKinley (34), a garage-owner from Newry, Co Down, accused of taking part in the London Docklands bombing in 1996 which cost the British exchequer an estimated £150 million in damages, walked free from the Old Bailey .
Mark 'Swinger' Fulton, a close confidant of Billy Wright (King Rat) narrowly escaped death when he was approached by a lone gunman.
WED. FEBRUARY 11, 1998: In a challenge to the British government's refusal to reduce his prison sentence by the period he was in custody in America, Long Kesh escaper Jimmy Smyth was granted leave to apply for a judicial review.
THURS. FEBRUARY 12, 1998: A pro-British death squad tried to abduct a 25-year-old north Belfastman after he left his four-year-old daughter in a nursery school on the Limestone Road, in the Newington area.
FRI. FEBRUARY 13, 1998: Three Dublin men — Gabriel Cleary, Bryan McNally and John Conaty — were jailed for 20 years each and a fourth for 12 years by the Special Non-jury Court in Dublin. They were found guilty of possessing explosive substance including timers, semtex and other bomb-making equipment with intent to endanger life. A fifth man, Thomas Conroy (76) a farm owner of Clonaslee, Co Laois who is suffering from cancer, was given a five year suspended sentence for having explosives.
MON. FEBRUARY 16, 1998: Republican Sinn Féin marked the first day of the Stormont talks session in Dublin with a protest picket outside the front gates of the Dublin Castle venue in the city centre.
WED. FEBRUARY 18, 1998: The body of Lurgan nationalist Kevin Conway (30), was found in a derelict farmhouse in Aghalee, just inside County Antrim.
The Dublin Supreme Court ruled that Belfastman Angelo Fusco, who escaped from Crumlin Road jail on June 10, 1981 and was convicted in his absence two days later to life imprisonment, is to be extradited to the Six-Counties to serve his full sentence.
THURS. FEBRUARY 19, 1998: A parcel bomb was delivered to the home of a nationalist family in Etna Drive, Ardoyne in Belfast. The recipient of the parcel became suspicious and threw it into the garden where it exploded. No one was injured. A second parcel bomb was posted to a house in the nationalist Toomebridge area of Co Derry. It was made safe by the British army.
FRI. FEBRUARY 20, 1998: The Provisionals were suspended for two weeks from the so-called all-party talks at Stormont by the British government because of the alleged involvement of their military organisation in the killing of two people.
A 500lb car-bomb exploded outside the RUC barracks in the village of Moira, Co Down causing extensive damage.
SAT. FEBRUARY 21, 1998: A loyalist death squad placed a bomb under a taxi owned by a former Republican prisoner at his home in Turf Lodge, west Belfast.
MON. FEBRUARY 23, 1998: A massive car-bomb caused extensive damage when it exploded in the centre of Portadown, Co Armagh. A 40-minute warning was given and no one was hurt.
The LVF loyalist death squad placed a bomb outside the 26-County police barracks at Drumad, Co Louth.
TUES. FEBRUARY 24, 1998: Members of the 26-County police defused a 250lb bomb which was discovered near Redhills, Co Cavan.
WED. FEBRUARY 25, 1998: Four people were injured when a letter-bomb exploded at a Royal Mail sorting office in Belfast. This was the third letter-bomb in a week, two others having been sent to nationalists in Belfast and Co Derry.
FRI. FEBRUARY 27, 1998: Paratrooper Lee Clegg, the British soldier who served two years and two months for the murder of Belfast teenager Karen Reilly in 1990 was granted a new trial.
A bomb, believed to have been planted by a loyalist death squad, was defused in the nationalist village of Carnlough, Co Antrim.
SAT. FEBRUARY 28, 1998: The book, Dílseacht: The Story of Comdt-Gen Tom Maguire and the Second (All-Ireland) Dáil, by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President of Republican Sinn Féin, was launched in Derry city.
The INLA said they had attacked an RUC patrol by planting an explosive device in the grounds of an integrated school in north Belfast.
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