THE UDA’s ousted leader in north Belfast, Andre Shoukri, has been forced to leave the paramilitary group’s wing in Maghaberry prison where he was being held.

His expulsion is further evidence of the terrorist group’s isolation of Shoukri and his brother Ihab, who were expelled from the Ulster Defence Association last week.

The Shoukris had hoped to make a stand against the movement and there were fears that a vicious loyalist feud might develop, similar to the one that followed the expulsion of Johnny Adair from the organisation in 2002.

But UDA and British government sources are now cautiously optimistic that things will not come to that. They say violence is unlikely unless the volatile Shoukris take the initiative.

One loyalist source said: “Both Andre and Ihab are used to gambling and losing, and there is no certainty that they will know when to cut their losses.” This is a reference to courtroom revelations that Andre, who is remanded in custody on extortion charges, once lost £863,000 (€1.25m) in a bookmaker’s.

The UDA believes that £30m in British government funding to loyalist areas hinges on a peaceful outcome to the internal dispute.

There is also the potential of several million more being levered from Irish government and business sources by Martin McAleese, the Irish president’s husband.

This appears to be why the UDA cautiously isolated the Shoukris before removing them. The strategy was designed by Jackie McDonald, the UDA’s south Belfast brigadier, who is a friend of the McAleeses.

McDonald is known to have an astute political sense, while being a ruthless man. What sets him apart from the rest, and makes him the UDA’s effective leader, is his ability to build up favours and goodwill even among businessmen from whom he had extorted money.

“I won’t always be a brigadier, but I’ll always be Jackie McDonald,” he once said. “I’ll have to be able to live with people without looking over my shoulder. Being a hard bastard won’t get you that.”

This pragmatic approach has won him real political influence with the Irish government and the McAleese family, to the point where he is sometimes referred to as “the Irish ambassador” by fellow loyalists.

The plan that McDonald has sold to the UDA is that the British government investment can be used to employ former UDA activists and released prisoners as community workers. It would be a way out of criminality for those who want one.

The Shoukris did not fit this vision. While McDonald is in his fifties, Andre is 28 and Ihab, frequently pie-eyed on the painkiller Nubain, is 31. A third brother Yehia, known as Yuk, is not a member of the UDA.

They are the sons of a Coptic Christian Egyptian seaman who married a Belfast woman and settled in the Ballysillan estate. He was killed in a car accident when the children were young.

His sons suffered racial abuse and were forced to move to the Westland estate, their present power base. Andre spent some time in Hazelwood, a religiously integrated school, then he and his brothers moved to the largely Protestant Boys’ Model School.

They dealt with the prejudice endemic in loyalist working class areas through good humour and boxing. “Even now Andre takes that sort of thing (racial discrimination) in good part,” one loyalist associate said. “He sometimes tells people he’s known as ‘the Paki’ to put them at their ease.”

After leaving school Andre, a handsome man with a powerful physique, became a male model for an agency, coincidentally called Pharaohs. Later he and Ihab worked for the Child Support Agency, which collects money from absent fathers, but Andre was forced to leave after being charged with a serious crime.

He joined the UDA after being accused of other offences. “We gave him a choice between being a member or being punished,” one UDA source said.

He and Ihab were initially proteges of Adair, whom Andre met in jail. Adair engineered the removal of Jimbo Simpson, dubbed the “Bacardi brigadier” because of his drink habit, as leader in north Belfast and his replacement by Andre. Later both brothers backed the leadership against Adair.

Since then the two brothers have alternated the leadership of north Belfast between them. It is an area where members of the UDA control lucrative rackets in prostitution, drugs and extortion that they fear they will lose if the Shoukris are replaced. But supporting the brothers with armed action could mean a death sentence.

A key to the future is the south-east Antrim brigade, where the brigadier is said to be involved in a land deal with the Shoukris. So far the brigade has remained neutral, earning it the nickname the Swiss. Over the next fortnight it and the north Belfast brigade have to decide whether to ditch the Shoukris or risk a bloody feud.

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