A shootout between OMON special police forces and suspected members of the Sharia Jamaat in Makhachkala on April 10 killed two policemen and one gunman. The Associated Press, citing Dagestan’s Interior Ministry, reported a suspected militant was detained, as well as the dead gunman’s wife.... MORE

A shootout between security forces and suspected militants in Nazran, Ingushetia on April 11 left one officer and two rebels dead, the Associated Press reported. A spokesman for the federal Interior Ministry’s branch in Southern Federal District, Roman Shchekotin, said that two other officers were... MORE

A representative of the “Jamaat Kataib al Khoul” in North Ossetia on April 13 claimed responsibility for an armed robbery in Vladikavkaz the previous day, during which a policeman was shot to death. RIA Novosti reported on April 12 that the incident took place at... MORE

Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled on April 6 that grave crimes commmited by the military in Chechnya would be tried by military tribunals until the use of juries is introduced there, the Moscow Times reported on April 7. The ruling came in response to an appeal... MORE

Interfax-Urals reported on April 6 that Mikhail Trepashkin, the defense attorney and former FSB colonel who is serving a four-year prison term in a low-security prison in Nizhny Tagil in Sverdlovsk region on charges of disclosing state secrets, ended a dry hunger strike on April... MORE

--REBELS AND “VOSTOK” FORCES SHOOT IT OUT IN SHALI The Associated Press, citing Chechnya’s Interior Ministry, reported on April 11 that eight to 10 rebels had fought a gunbattle with Defense Ministry troops the previous day in Chechnya’s southeastern Shali district. According to the news... MORE

On January 31, President Vladimir Putin declared the end of the so-called anti-terrorist operation, the official name of the second Chechen war. “I think we can rightly speak about the end of the anti-terrorist operation with the understanding that the law enforcement agencies of Chechnya... MORE

The Chechen separatist Daymohk website on April 3 published an address by Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev. The Chechen rebel president claimed his forces had destroyed "dozens of pieces of enemy equipment" on "all fronts of the war" this winter. "The most odious figures in the camp of... MORE

The Washington Post on April 1 ran an op-ed piece by Anna Politkovskaya, entitled "Stalinism Forever." The Novaya gazeta correspondent said that hundreds of cases involving alleged Islamic terrorism are going through Russia's courts, and that most of them "have been fabricated by the government... MORE

Chechen Prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov announced on April 3 that 57 graves had been found in Kirov Park in Grozny's Leninsky district, RIA Novosti reported. Construction is currently underway in the park, these days known as Akhmad Kadyrov Park, to build an Akhmad Kadyrov Entertainment Center.... MORE