Chechen President Alu Alkhanov announced on February 21 that five people were shot to death on February 18 by unknown persons as they were driving in the Kurchaloi district on, Interfax reported. Alkhanov said that two of the victims were employees of the presidential security... MORE

President Vladimir Putin on February 21 urged Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev to take tougher actions in the North Caucacus. Referring to an operation the previous day (February 20) in which commandos stormed an apartment in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria and killed three suspected Islamic militants who were... MORE

NEWSru.com reported on February 20 that the apartment in which the gunmen barricaded themselves was blockaded the previous day and that security forces negotiated with them all night. The militants, however, refused to give up, and a gun battle broke out around 7:20 a.m., local... MORE

Newsru.com reported on February 22 that contradictory information was coming out of Khasavyurt, Dagestan, about a special operation that security officials said had been carried out that day against a group of armed militants. The deputy head of Khasavyurt's administration, Arsanali Murtuzaliev, told Interfax that... MORE

The "Mothers of Beslan" group, consisting of parents of children killed in last September's school massacre in the North Ossetian town, were in Moscow this past week trying to put forward their demands – above all, that North Ossetian President Aleksandr Dzasokhov resign. Lidiya Grafova... MORE

Interfax on February 17 quoted Britain's ambassador to Russia, Anthony Brenton, as saying that the British government had proposed that Russia use the Northern Ireland peace negotiations as a model in its efforts to settle the war in Chechnya. "Our officials met their Russian counterparts... MORE

The FSB claimed on February 21 that Abu Zeit, a Kuwaiti al-Qaeda emissary, was killed in joint Interior Ministry-FSB operation in a private house in a village in Ingushetia on February 16, Interfax reported. "The operation first resulted in the death of two of his... MORE

Late in 2002, the third year of the second Chechen military campaign, the Kremlin started to implement its policy of "Chechenization." The idea was to make Chechens fight Chechens in order to save the lives of Russian soldiers and to transfer the burden of war... MORE

--KLEBNIKOV MURDER SUSPECTS EXTRADITED TO RUSSIA On February 22, Belarus handed over to the Russian authorities two Chechens suspected of murdering Paul Klebnikov, the veteran investigative journalists and editor of the Russia-language edition of Forbes, in Moscow last July. Newsru.com, citing Belarusian national television, reported... MORE

Gen.-Major Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian military operation in the North Caucasus, claimed on February 14 that Federal Security Service (FSB) and Interior Ministry forces had carried out a special operation to destroy a group of rebels, Interfax reported. Shabalkin said the rebel group... MORE