1.   Because NATO does not wish to become involved in another open-ended mission, the Macedonia effort is scheduled to last a month from the first day of collecting weapons.

2.   NATO officials said they were realistic about the difficulties of collecting weapons in a region that is awash in arms and where arms dealers freely cross borders.

3.   That gave Kataoka the idea of collecting weapons in exchange for farming tools such as hoes and other necessities.

4.   The Taliban regime also believed that guns destabilized society and it too devoted considerable resources to collecting weapons.

5.   Collecting weapons would be a difficult task.

6.   During Operation Essential Harvest, thousands of NATO troops are collecting weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels, bt despite progress in the collection, tensions persist.

7.   If parliament backs the plan, NATO would be able to move onto the next phase in collecting weapons voluntarily surrendered by rebels of the National Liberation Army.

8.   NATO officials insist that this is a very narrowly defined mission and will involve collecting weapons being turned in voluntarily.

9.   NATO was awaiting the parliament decision to resume collecting weapons from the rebel National Liberation Army, or NLA, possibly immediately after the vote or Friday.

10.   NATO spokesman Maj. Barry Johnson said troops were collecting weapons from the militants at a site opened earlier in the day.