11.   But splinter paramilitary groups opposed to the talks tried in recent months to scuttle them with killings and mortar attacks on police stations.

12.   Despite an order by Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to halt mortar attacks, Palestinians fired shells into an Israeli settlement, but no one was hurt.

13.   Ecuador denied allegations by Peru that the Ecuadorean army launched two mortar attacks on a Peruvian army base near a disputed section of their shared border.

14.   Fifty more children arrived after a mortar attack on a refugee camp at the border two weeks ago.

15.   He and other leaders of the Palestinian Authority insist that their forces have not been involved in the mortar attacks.

16.   He has also held two meetings with Arafat, and it was Omri Sharon whom Arafat phoned to announce his intention to crack down on mortar attacks.

17.   He said suicide bombings and mortar attacks were wrong because they undermined the Palestinian cause by providing a pretext for Israeli military operations.

18.   His mother died of illness and his grandfather was killed in a mortar attack while attending a funeral.

19.   Hours before the conference, the dissident group launched a botched mortar attack on a police station in Belleek, the Fermanagh town famed for its pottery.

20.   In retaliation for the mortar attacks, Israeli forces rocketed the offices of an intelligence branch of the Palestinian security forces at the southern end of Gaza.