1.   Army officials said they assumed the intruders were remnants of the Qaida terrorist network or former Taliban combatants testing the vulnerability of the base.

2.   A decade after peace accords ended the civil war, the former combatants have devoted themselves to political rather than armed struggle.

3.   But at a party convention last year, more militant members won a ticket with two former combatants, Guardado and Nidia Diaz.

4.   But former combatants had long pressed for acknowledgement of the conflict as a war in order to gain recognition as war veterans.

5.   But he also said he was heartened by what he called a warm reception that the American forces and other peacekeepers had received so far from the former combatants.

6.   But unlike Angola, Mozambique is a country where the former combatants, and the population, seem genuinely drained of any will to fight.

7.   Former combatants on both sides describe themselves as soured by the lack of direction and leadership they see around them.

8.   Former RUF child combatants during a ceremony in Makeni, in which they were released from the fighting forces.

9.   Former combatants still fight in parts of the countryside.

10.   He committed the government to carrying out the mandates of the peace accords, which included giving land to former combatants and building a new civilian national police.