Categorizing Asides

How can I create four different Asides lists on my main page with different categories set for each one? My existing code is:

<?php
query_posts('cat=12'.$asides.'&posts_per_page=3');
$num=0;
?>
<div id="sec2entries">
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<h4>EUROPE ARTICLES</h4>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php if ($num < 1) {$num++;continue;} ?>
<h4><a>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> <?php edit_post_link("(e)", "", ""); ?></h4>
<div class="postmeta" style="margin:0px">
<?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?> | <?php comments_popup_link('0 comments', '1 comment', '% comments' ) ?>
</div>

<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php else : ?>
<!-- no posts -->
<div class="nonfeature">
<h2>Sorry, no posts were found</h2>
</div><?php endif; ?>

Where, I think, “12” on the second line would stand for all my European articles. But all I get is “Sorry, no posts were found”.