--UMAROV MARKS ANNIVERSARY OF REBEL SEIZURE OF GROZNY In a statement posted on the separatist Chechenpress website on August 6, Chechen rebel president Dokku Umarov commemorated the rebel operation to retake Grozny conducted ten years earlier. Umarov called the August 6, 1996 rebel operation “a... MORE

--CHECHEN RIGHTS LAWYER BEATEN UP Usam Baisaev of Memorial told Ekho Moskvy on August 16 that a Chechen police officer had beaten up a lawyer, Dzhabrail Abubakarov, who had been hired by the human rights group to provide legal assistance to Chechen citizens complaining about... MORE

--RELATIVES OF DISAPPEARED GATHER IN GROZNY Kavkazky Uzel reported on August 30 that more than 200 mothers and other relatives of disappeared people gathered in central Grozny. According to the website, the demonstrators held photographs of relatives who had disappeared or were being held against... MORE

--EUROPEAN ANTI-TORTURE OFFICIAL CONCERNED ABOUT CHECHNYA The head of the Council of Europe’s Anti-Torture Committee, Mauro Palma, criticized conditions at a detention facility in Chechnya during talks with Chechen President Alu Alkhanov in Grozny, Interfax reported on September 10. Palma said it was his second... MORE

--FIVE RUSSIAN SERVICEMEN KILLED IN GROZNY Five federal Interior Ministry servicemen, including a lieutenant colonel and two majors, were killed on September 21 when their car was ambushed in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district, the Rosbalt news agency reported. Meanwhile, Chechen law-enforcement bodies captured a rebel field... MORE

--KOZAK VOWS TO PREVENT FUTURE CHECHEN-INGUSH VIOLENCE The Russian presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, said on September 25 that those responsible for the September 13 shootout between Ingush and Chechen police on the administrative border between the two republics would face... MORE

REBELS CARRY OUT ATTACKS IN CHECHNYA… Three policemen from an OMON special police task force were wounded when their jeep was fired upon near a checkpoint on the road between the town of Shali and the village of Agishty, Interfax reported. The three servicemen were... MORE

--HOUSE OF POLITKOVSKAYA ASSOCIATE REPORTEDLY SHELLED The Nazran-based Council of Non-Governmental Organizations (SNO) reported on October 10 that Russian troops the previous day had shelled the village of Selmentauzen in Chechnya’s Vedeno district. According to a report posted on the council’s website, Livechechnya.org, two shells... MORE

--SAVELYEV: AS MANY AS 78 GUNMEN CARRIED OUT BESLAN RAID Yuri Savelyev, the State Duma deputy who is conducting an independent investigation into the Beslan school raid, claimed on October 12 that at least 56 and possibly as many as 78 attackers were involved in... MORE

--ZYAZIKOV POURS COLD WATER ON CHECHEN-INGUSH REUNIFICATION Ingush President Murat Zyazikov said on October 24 that neither Ingushetia nor Chechnya needs a merger of the two republics. “I, as president of Ingushetia, one of the presidents of the Vainakh people, want to state: today, we... MORE