CAR BOMB IN MAKHACHKALA.

A car bomb was discovered yesterday outside the government building in Makhachkala, capital of the North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan. An operation to defuse the bomb is underway. (NTV, RTR, January 12) Coming as it does on the heels of a raid last month — allegedly carried out by Chechen fighters and Dagestani Wahhabis — on a Russian military unit in the Dagestani town of Buinaksk, this new terrorist act is arousing considerable alarm. "It is clear that certain forces are doing everything they can to provoke war in Dagestan. The situation in the republic is very tense. People’s nerves are strained to the limit," Dagestani Security Council secretary Magomet Tolboev told the Monitor yesterday.

Russia’s Human Rights Record Under Fire.