1.   The Chechens were trying to force Russia to end its military campaign to crush the independence bid in Chechnya.

2.   But all the leading presidential contenders in Chechnya favor independence and have shown no signs of relaxing their independence bid.

3.   European leaders urged President Milo Djukanovic to back off the drive for independence bid after the narrow margin in parliamentary elections.

4.   Fourteen months later, Yeltsin ordered troops into the separatist region of Chechnya to end its independence bid.

5.   Jafar Umar Thalib, the commander of the Islamic militant group Laskar Jihad responded to the independence bid by urging his followers on Friday to ignore the peace deal.

6.   Moscow sent in tens of thousands of troops last December to crush the independence bid.

7.   Russia sent troops to Chechnya in December to quell its three-year independence bid.

8.   The head of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, issued a statement Wednesday urging Chechens to abandon their independence bid.

9.   The separatists lost their independence bid by a razor-thin majority, prompting Bouchard to vow to continue the campaign for separation from the rest of Canada.

10.   Thousands have died since Russian forces stormed into the breakaway Caucasus republic in December to crush an independence bid by forces loyal to separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev.