Separatist Terror For more than a decade, extremist group Abu Sayyaf has terrorized the Philippines with its trademark hostage taking and beheadings in its fight to establish an Islamic state on the island of Mindanao.

1991 Abduragak Abubakar Janjalani - a mujahadeen veteran of the Afghanistan war against Soviet occupation - creates Abu Sayyaf, a radical Islamic organization, after splitting from the separatist Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Shortly after the split, Abu Sayyaf conducts its first major terrorist attack in which two foreign women are killed by a grenade explosion.

1992 Abu Sayyaf militants hurl a bomb at a wharf in the southern city of Zamboanga, where the MV Doulous, an international floating bookstore manned by Christian preachers, is docked. Several people are injured.

Nov. 14, 1993 Abu Sayyaf terrorists kidnap U.S. missionary Charles M. Watson in Pangutaran Island, Sulu Batu. The missionary, who works for the Summer Institute of Linguistics, is released unharmed in Manila on Dec. 7.

Dec. 11, 1994 Abu Sayyaf claims responsibility for an explosion aboard a Philippine Airliner. One Japanese citizen is killed and at least 10 others are injured.

April 1995 Abu Sayyaf carries out a vicious attack on the Christian town of Ipil in Mindanao. Gunmen raze the town center to the ground and kill 53 civilians and soldiers. The military says the group has forged links with international terrorist cells, including Osama bin Laden's global al-Qaeda network.

Sept. 9, 1997 Suspected members of Abu Sayyaf kidnap a German business executive in Zamboanga City. He is released on Dec. 26.

December 1998 Abu Sayyaf leader Janjalani is killed in a firefight with Philippine police in the village of Lamitan on Basilam Island.

Jan. 31, 1999 Abu Sayyaf members are suspected of lobbing a grenade into a crowd that had gathered to watch firefighters put out a blaze in a neighborhood supermarket. Ten people are killed, and at least 74 injured. The attack is thought to have been carried out in a bid to avenge Janjalani's death.

March 20, 2000 Fifty-three hostages - including 22 school children, five teachers and a priest - are seized from two Christian schools in Basilan after Abu Sayyaf failed in an attempt to take an army outpost. The rebels subsequently release 20 hostages in exchange for food and medicine. Two male hostages are later beheaded by the terrorists during negotiations and four more are killed by their captors during a rescue attempt by the Philippine military.

April 23, 2000 Abu Sayyaf rebels abduct 21 people - 10 Westerners, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos - from Malaysia's Sipadan resort and take them to Jolo Island in the Philippines. Two Americans escape at the resort.

May 18, 2000 Three grenades explode in a Jolo market. Four are killed and dozens injured. Police blame Abu Sayyaf.

June 3, 2000 Rebels kidnap 10 journalists, mostly Germans, and release them 10 hours later for $25,000.

July 1-9, 2000 During nine days, Abu Sayyaf gunmen seize a German reporter, a French TV crew and a group of Philippine evangelists who visited the Jolo camp to pray for the hostages.

Aug. 29, 2000 Abu Sayyaf militants abduct Jeffrey Craig Schilling, an American Muslim convert who came to visit their Jolo Island stronghold. Abu Sabaya, a spokesman for the faction holding Schilling says his group is demanding the release of Ramzi Youssef, Sheikh Adel Omar Rahman and Abu Haidal from American jails.

Sept. 9, 2000 The remaining four Western hostages - two Finns, one French and one German - taken on April 23 from Sipadan are freed. It is reported Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi paid several million dollars to Abu Sayyaf over several weeks for the release of the hostages.

Sept. 10, 2000 Abu Sayyaf kidnaps three people from Pandanan Island diving resort. The hostages are taken to Sulu Island.

Sept. 16, 2000 Manila launches a military offensive against Abu Sayyaf.

May 21, 2001 The Philippine government suspects Abu Sayyaf members in a raid on a Pearl Farm Island resort. Nobody is kidnapped but two resort workers are killed and another three are injured during a brief gunfight.

May 27, 2001 Abu Sayyaf gunmen seize 20 people - mostly tourists - from the dive resort of Dos Palmas on the island of Palawan. Two of the hostages include missionary couple Gracia and Martin Burnham of Wichita, Kan. One American, Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif., is later beheaded.

Aug. 5, 2001 Philippine soldiers rescue 13 hostages, including eight children, from Abu Sayyaf. The hostages are among a group of 36 people seized three days earlier in a raid by the extremist group on a village on the southern island of Basilan. A Philippine military official says 10 others from the group are found beheaded.

Nov. 15, 2001 Abu Sayyaf releases seven of their last 10 hostages, leaving them with only a Filipino nurse and the American missionary couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham.

Nov.-Dec. 2001 As part of its war on terrorism, the United States sends several dozen unarmed military advisers - Green Berets - to train Philippine troops in the fight against Abu Sayyaf. The U.S. Army also gives hundreds of weapons, including sniper rifles, mortars and grenade launchers, to the Philippine military for use against the Muslim extremist group linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Jan. 16, 2002 The first wave of several hundred U.S. soldiers arrive in the Philippines to help the government in its fight against Abu Sayyaf - rebels linked to al-Qaeda.

June 7, 2002 American hostage Martin Burnham dies and his wife Gracia is shot in the leg but rescued when Philippine troops launch a strike on the Muslim extremist kidnappers. Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap, held hostage with the missionary couple, is shot in the rescue operation and dies of her wounds shortly afterward.