Chechen People's Assembly Chairman Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov on March 30 called for the withdrawal of all Russian federal forces from the republic except for border guards. "I believe that border guards should remain in the republic today," he said. "Other troops—all regiments and divisions that are... MORE

A homemade bomb detonated in Nazran, Ingushetia, on April 1, killing one person and wounding two. "The explosion occurred near school No. 5 on Mutaliev Street at 8:15 a.m. Saturday," a city police source told Interfax. "It killed the driver of a van that was... MORE

On March 29, Kelly McEvers, an American freelance journalist, was detained in the city of Khasavyurt, Dagestan, when she was leaving the city accompanied by a local reporter from the Chernovik newspaper. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that McEvers was taken to the Khasavyurt... MORE

Leonid Roshal, the Moscow pediatrician sought out by the Beslan hostage-takers as a negotiator and who was awarded by the Russian government for his assistance during the October 2002 Dubrovka theater hostage crisis, said on March 27 that he disagrees with the official explanation for... MORE

Kavkazky Uzel on March 29 cited a report by the Chechen government’s press service. “There is a holiday in the Kurchaloi district maternity hospital,” the press service reported, noting that the hospital had just opened on March 8 and had delivered its first baby boy—Akhmat... MORE

Kommersant reported on March 29 that Sultan Geliskhanov, the former head of the security department in the government of Dzhokhar Dudaev, had surrendered. According to the newspaper, Chechen law enforcement officials claimed on March 28 that the former separatist colonel showed up at the Gudermes... MORE

The Chechen Interior Ministry categorically denied media reports that members of Chechnya’s law enforcement structures had defected to the rebels, Interfax reported on March 25 (see Chechnya Weekly, March 16). “An analysis of the publications points to the fact that certain media at someone’s suggestion... MORE

The Chechen National Salvation Committee reported on March 24 that two Chechen teenagers were detained by members of the local Anti-Terrorist Center and tortured. The committee cited a source who said that Bekkhan Makhmatkhadzhiev, 19, and Nurdi Bamataliev, 13, were detained on the outskirts of... MORE

--RANSOM DEMANDS PUT FORWARD FOR ZYAZIKOV’S FATHER-IN-LAW Kommersant reported on March 30 that a month after the kidnapping of Magomed Chakhkiev, a deputy in the parliament of Ingushetia and father-in-law of the republic’s president, Murat Zyazikov (see Chechnya Weekly, March 6), someone calling himself “Khabibulla”... MORE

On March 18 Russia’s Prosecutor General announced the launch of a criminal case involving the participation of a number of Ukraine’s leading radical nationalists as mercenaries in the war in Chechnya. All those charged, including leading ultra-nationalists Dimitro Korchinski and the late Anatoli Lupinos, were... MORE