41.   Some troops will be withdrawn from Chechnya, where Russia is fighting to crush a separatist rebellion, starting in June, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said Wednesday.

42.   The Abu Sayyaf, a small but ruthless gang of kidnappers that behead many of its victims, was bred amid three decades of Muslim separatist rebellions.

43.   The Abu Sayyaf is a radical offshoot of the Moro National Liberation Front which signed a peace treaty with the government last year to end a Moslem separatist rebellion.

44.   The first mission returned with allegations of grave human rights violations by Russia, which sent troops into Chechnya in December to counter a separatist rebellion.

45.   The majority of the dossiers arriving in Strasbourg relate to the conflict in Kurdish areas of Turkey where a separatist rebellion has raged for more than a decade.

46.   The MFDC, which has for more than two decades been leading a separatist rebellion in Casamance, has not made an official statement regarding the attack.