In an April 21 telephone conversation with Jamestown, the U.S. Central Command refused to confirm or deny reports in the British press that Chechens had been captured by American troops in Iraq. Tales of Chechens in Iraq are beginning to seem almost like an "urban... MORE

The federal authorities in Moscow have continued to avoid any public comment on Anna Politkovskaya's dramatic article in the April 28 issue of Novaya gazeta. The piece identified a Chechen hostage-taker, Khanpash Terkibaev, as an agent of the Russian government. A May 5 article by... MORE

...AMID SPECULATION OF LINK TO DEPUTY'S MURDER The militant separatist website "kavakazcenter" published a statement last week that it said it had received on April 25 from Shamil Basaev (under his nom de guerre, Abdullakh Shamil Abu-Idris), The statement commented on the murder of Duma... MORE

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