Today, the northwestern part of the North Caucasus region (comprised of the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Adygeya) is increasingly becoming one large battlefield. An affluent resort area during the Soviet period, today the region attracts very few Russian visitors, primarily due to its instability.... MORE

Rebels in Ingushetia and Chechnya continue to target the police and military in the two troubled republics. The chief of the forensics department of Ingushetia's interior ministry, Magomed Gadaborshev, died today of wounds sustained during an attack on July 7. Gadaborshev was shot by unknown... MORE

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov declared on July 7 that the June 22 suicide bombing that seriously wounded Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was organized by Chechen rebel leader Dokka Umarov, who is emir of the Caucasus Emirate, and Akhmed Yevloev (aka Emir Magas), leader of the... MORE

The June 22 attack on Ingushetia's president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, which left him badly wounded, has sparked a discussion in Russia over what to do next in the North Caucasus as a whole and in Ingushetia in particular. Moscow's initial reaction to the attack on president... MORE

In one of their deadliest recent attacks, rebels in Ingushetia on July 4 ambushed a convoy of Chechen policemen in a wooded area on the road between the villages of Chemulga and Arshty in the republic's Sunzha district, killing nine policemen and wounding ten others.Agence... MORE

Amnesty International said in a report released on June 30 that ongoing human rights abuses in Chechnya, Ingushetia and other parts of the North Caucasus give the lie to claims made by the Russia authorities that the region is generally reverting to "normal" after years... MORE

On June 22, at 8.30 am, a suicide attacker crashed his explosives-filled Toyota into the vehicle carrying the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, as the presidential motorcade was passing by in the city of Nazran. So far, the investigators failed to establish the driver's identity.... MORE

Militants in Dagestan today attacked the headquarters of the police in the city of Derbent, just south of the republic capital Makhachkala and near the border with Georgia, Russian and Western news agencies reported. According to the Associated Press, three policemen and a civilian died... MORE

On June 15, the Dagestani branch of Rossvyazkomnadzor, the Russian state agency that oversees the media, filed a lawsuit to shut down the Makhachkala-based independent weekly Chernovik because of its alleged support for extremist views, and on June 18 the paper had its first court... MORE

In a nationally televised address on June 17, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov came down hard on Chechnya's law enforcement agencies for the inadequate results they showed in capturing the rebels (www.rusnovosti.ru, June 17). The Chechen president gave his top brass only two weeks to wipe... MORE