Who was the real leader of the Chechen hostage-takers who seized the Dubrovka theater last October? Most press accounts have assigned that role to Movsar Baraev, but an article in the April 29 issue of Moskovskie novosti suggested another possibility. Correspondents Sanobar Shermatova and Aleksander... MORE

WILLFULLY MISUNDERSTANDING "TERRORISM?" On April 30 the U.S. State Department released the latest version of its annual report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism." The department's website included a passage that caught Jamestown's attention--the U.S. government's official definition of "terrorism." According to this passage, "The term 'terrorism'... MORE

Potential candidates for the presidency of Chechnya, together with their supporters, continue to maneuver via leaks to the press even though the date of the elections--at least six months away--has still not been publicly announced. From the most recent detailed analysis of the various contenders,... MORE

Correspondent Andrei Riskin of Nezavisimaya gazeta reported on April 28 that complaints about kidnappings continue to come not only from rank-and-file Chechens, but also from members of the Kadyrov administration and from federal officials. Rudnik Dudaev, secretary of Kadyrov's security council, announced on April 26... MORE

A former top official of Chechnya's Moscow-appointed administration--one of several to have lost faction fights with the head of the administration Akhmad Kadyrov--died on April 30, less than a month after his ouster. Ruslan Tsakaev, former minister of the interior for Chechnya, passed away in... MORE

Have U.S. troops captured Chechen irregulars fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein in Iraq? Vague reports to that effect have circulated in various media, but the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House have so far declined either to confirm or to deny... MORE

A specialist at the independent group Human Rights Watch has confirmed what one might already have guessed from reading the published reports of last month's meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which defeated a resolution criticizing Russia's policies in Chechnya. Rachel Denber... MORE

Was last October's attack by Chechen terrorists on a Moscow theater actually a provocation organized by elements of the Russian security services--or at least known to them in advance, so that they could easily have prevented it? In the opinion of Novaya gazeta correspondent Anna... MORE

The number of Chechen refugees returning to their homeland from Ingushetia has grown since the March referendum, though not dramatically, the Polit.ru website reported on April 22. The authorities have now changed tactics, and are compelling refugees to return by withholding food and other humanitarian... MORE

Some 366.8 million rubles (about US$12.2 million) in federal subsidies to Chechnya have been spent for purposes other than those intended, the head of the Russian parliament's audit chamber announced on April 19. Sergei Stepashin stressed that this does not mean that this entire sum... MORE