Courtesy Associated Press

David Trimble won the official backing Saturday of Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party in a bid to reclaim his position atop a shaky coalition government.

However, the victory came as hard-line party members warned they were unimpressed by recent Irish Republican Army moves on disarmament, suggesting they may not give Trimble the crucial legislative backing he needs to reclaim his job as First Minister.

``We are going into this hoping to be elected, expecting to be elected on unionist votes,'' Trimble said, referring to wavering support among a handful of members of his Ulster Unionist Party.

Trimble quit his post atop the joint Protestant-Catholic government in July, fed up with the IRA's refusal to fulfill past promises to put its weapons ``beyond use.''

As the government stumbled to the brink of collapse, the outlawed Catholic militant group announced Tuesday that it had destroyed an undisclosed stash of guns and explosives. An independent decommissioning body witnessed the event, calling it ``significant.''

Britain quickly reciprocated the move by tearing down military surveillance posts on the province's border with the Republic of Ireland, an area of heavy IRA support.

Trimble declared his satisfaction with the IRA move this week and announced plans to seek re-election.

The Ulster Unionists' ruling executive backed him Saturday, declaring that all the party's 28 assembly members should support Trimble in a reinstatement vote expected next week.

But Trimble will need a majority of the Protestants attending the session - there are 58 total - and a handful of Ulster Unionist legislators have fleeting support for Trimble, whom they accuse of being too soft on Catholic militants.

Ulster Unionist lawmaker Pauline Armitage voiced dissenters' concerns Saturday, saying the party had no idea how much weaponry the IRA had destroyed and had no promises of further disarmament.

``I would have thought if weapons are finally to be removed from Northern Ireland by February 2002, we should have had a program. That is what we need to put confidence back into those people living in north Belfast'' she told a British Broadcasting Corp. radio program.

Armitage said she couldn't trust the IRA or its close political ally, the Sinn Fein party. ``I have to accept (Sinn Fein leaders) Gerry Adams' and Martin McGuinness' word,'' she said.

``I don't have that faith or confidence in Sinn Fein/IRA.''

Violence among Protestants and Catholics continued Saturday in a divided Belfast neighborhood after an 18-year-old British soldier was critically wounded the night before by gasoline bombs throne at a military checkpoint, a police spokesman said.