--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

In August 2006, the Russian Interior Ministry (MVD) announced changes in the security structure of the North Caucasus that would dissolve the Regional Operational Headquarters responsible for counter-terrorism, replacing it with a series of local operational headquarters in the Southern Federal District led by MVD... MORE

A shootout on September 13 between a group of armed Chechen OMON police commandos and Ingush police manning a traffic police post on the Chechen-Ingush administrative border resulted in the deaths of seven people–one Ingush police and six Chechen OMON. Among the victims was the... MORE

The Chechen parliament, which is dominated by deputies loyal to Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, has taken what Kommersant on September 7 described as “the final step toward the creation of an autonomous republic within the structure of Russia.” The legislature introduced into the State Duma... MORE

The separatist Kavkazcenter.com website on September 12 posted a statement by the “Jamaat of Ossetian mujahideen ‘Kataib al Khoul’” claiming that they were responsible for the crash the previous day of an Mi-8 Russian military helicopter. The chopper with three crew members and 12 senior... MORE

The Sunday Times reported on September 10 that fears were growing over the fate of Elina Ersenoeva, a young Chechen journalist who was reportedly forced to marry Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev last fall and was abducted at gunpoint, apparently by pro-Moscow Chechen security forces,... 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

On September 4, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov called for renaming Chechnya the “Nokhchiin Republic,” which is the republic’s name in the Chechen language. The idea, however, received a thumbs-down the following day from the republic’s prime minister and de facto strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, as well... MORE

Chechen President Alu Alkhanov and Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov also diverged in their reactions to the violence in the Karelian city of Kondopoga. On August 30, a fight between an ethnic Azeri bartender and Slavic clients at an Azeri-run restaurant in the northern city... MORE

In an interview with the Agentstvo Natsionalnykh Novostei (ANN) published on August 22, the speaker of the lower house of Chechnya’s parliament, Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, reiterated his call for Chechnya’s merger with Ingushetia and claimed that a number of districts in Dagestan belong to Chechnya. Asked... MORE