Russia’s Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights held a conference on June 1 – 2 in Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, devoted to the situation in the republic. Participants painted a bleak picture of the state of human rights in Dagestan, and... MORE

On May 31, police in Kabardino-Balkaria reported that they prevented an attempt to assassinate the president of the republic, Arsen Kanokov. According to a police source, two roadside bombs, the biggest of them containing five kilograms of TNT, were placed at the entrance to the... MORE

May 2011 ended with a loud statement made by US President Barack Obama in Paris, in which he declared the leader of the North Caucasus-based armed resistance, Doku Umarov, a terrorist, a move bound to please Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The US president further pledged... MORE

Tarkhan Gaziev is one of the most notable field commanders in Chechnya’s interminable rebellion against the Russian state. At various times during the second military campaign since 1999, he held a number of top military positions within the Chechen armed underground resistance. Gaziev commanded a... MORE

On May 20, two bodyguards of South Ossetia’s leader Eduard Kokoity were killed in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia. According to some reports, Alim Kabulov and Oleg Ikaev were at the Vladikavkaz airport to meet Kokoity, who was expected to return from Moscow on the same day.... MORE

The US State Department on March 26 designated the Caucasus Emirate under Presidential Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists, terrorist organizations or acts of terrorism. The State Department said in a statement that the action would “help stem the... MORE

The term “jamaat,” considered native to the North Caucasus in view of the operations undertaken there by the armed resistance, is clearly spreading beyond the region’s borders. The Russian special forces recently did not even attempt to hide the existence of an Islamic underground cell... MORE

On May 22, the Russian security services killed one of the leaders of the Kabardino-Balkarian insurgency, Buzhigit Khadzhiev (aka “Musa, the emir of the northwestern front”). Magomed Zalikhanov, dubbed by the law enforcement agencies as an active supporter of the rebels, was also killed in... MORE

On May 20, the Georgian parliament recognized the mass killings and deportations of Circassians from the North Caucasus in the nineteenth century as “genocide.” The resolution, which passed by a vote of 95 to 0, said that pre-planned “mass killings of the Circassians by Tsarist... MORE

The rebel Kavkaz Center website on May 17 posted the transcript of an interview with Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader who is also “emir” of the Caucasus Emirate. Earlier, on May 11, Kavkaz Center denied rumors in the Russian press that Umarov was receiving... MORE