Once the most stabile republic of the North Caucasus, North Ossetia is increasingly turning into a region of conflict. Demands for the resignation of North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov, heard practically everywhere in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan tragedy, are not the only threat... MORE

--DAGESTANI POLICE REMAIN IN THE CROSSHAIRS A bridge over the Aktash River in Dagestan's Khasavyurtovsky district was partially blown up by unknown perpetrators on March 29, Itar-Tass reported. Police officials told the news agency that no one was hurt in the incident. On March 28,... MORE

A roundtable on Chechnya was held in Strasbourg under the auspices of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on March 21. The meeting, which was organized by Swiss parliamentarian Andreas Gross – with, according to Kommersant, "active help" from Russia's State Duma and... MORE

On the eve of the Strasbourg roundtable on Chechnya, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report stating that continuing disappearances in Chechnya have now reached the level of a crime against humanity. In a March 21 press release, the New York-based group cited estimates by... MORE

Memorial also issued a report on Chechnya, entitled "Chechnya 2004: ‘New' methods of ‘counter-terrorism'," which was mainly devoted the issue of kidnappings. "The argument about the need to fight against kidnapping and hostage-taking was actively used by official Moscow as one of the main justifications... MORE

The Information Center of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORChD), the Nizhny Novogord-based human rights group, reported on March 15 that unknown persons had the previous day distributed leaflets in several apartment buildings in the city accusing the organization's editor, Oksana Chelysheva, of supporting terrorism and... MORE

The French newspaper Libération on March 19 published a letter that Aslan Maskhadov wrote to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana dated February 25 – that is, less than two weeks before Maskhadov's death – in which the rebel leader reiterated his commitment to... MORE

Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev warned in an interview published by Sweden's TT news agency on March 21, which was also posted on the separatist Kavkazcenter website, that separatist fighters will carry out terrorist attacks against Russian targets both in Russian and in Qatar, where... MORE

A report from Chechnya published in Moskovsky komsomolets on March 21 suggested that federal forces have not yet captured Shamil Basaev because they do not want to capture him. "Why is Basaev still alive and free to this very day?," wrote the article's author, Svetlana... MORE

Few conflicts in modern times have been so poorly known or understood as the Russo-Chechen war. And as the struggle over Chechnya is propelled to the forefront of the War on Terrorism, further obscuring the war's causes and effects, new works of scholarship are desperately... MORE