1.   A LOYALIST paramilitary punishment squad is believed to be behind the vicious murder of a woman who was battered to death in her Belfast home.

2.   Hanna remembers getting a rare tip about a teen-ager who had just been bundled into a car by a Protestant punishment squad.

3.   Sinn Fein leaders say that they are opposed to punishment squads but are powerless to persuade the IRA to stop them.

4.   The members of what is known here as a punishment squad sealed off the perimeter of the building with military precision.

5.   There is support for punishment squads in the poor, working-class neighborhoods where they flourish.

6.   They appeared unable to guarantee safety from the mobile punishment squads or mysterious kidnappers not linked to the Taliban who recently began to strike in the area.