81.   Maskhadov said the kidnappers had panicked and decapitated the hostages after authorities arrested one kidnapper and launched an operation to rescue the foreigners.

82.   Mirza is regional army commander of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, which controls part of northern Iraq where the Turkish operation was launched.

83.   NATO on Wednesday launched the operation to collect weapons surrendered by ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia.

84.   No rescue operations were launched immediately because the sun had set and the area is too remote to send help after dark, officials said.

85.   Other countries operating on Antarctica, including France and South Africa, have already launched cleanup operations at their bases.

86.   Police had launched an operation to rescue the missing men, Oner said.

87.   Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said today that he could not rule out the possibility of launching ground operations in the breakaway republic.

88.   Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said he could not rule out the possibility of launching ground operations in the breakaway republic.

89.   Shevardnadze said there are no current plans to launch an operation in the gorge, which borders the Russian separatist republic of Chechnya.

90.   Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Friday tried to squelch speculation that a U.S.-led anti-terrorist operation could be launched against Afghanistan from formerly Soviet Central Asia.