On March 16, the International Crisis Group (ICG) presented a report titled “The North Caucasus Insurgency and Syria: An Exported Jihad?” According to the ICG, the Russian security services opened the borders to allow radicals from the North Caucasus to travel freely to the Middle... MORE

On March 16, a well-known human rights activist, Igor Kalyapin, who heads the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, was attacked in Grozny, Chechnya. Soon after Kalyapin’s arrival in Grozny, the administration of the hotel where he was staying asked him to leave the premises.... MORE

Enemies of the well-known Salafist preacher Khamzat Chumakov have been pursuing him for a while. In 2010, an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded under the Salafist cleric’s car. Chumakov was badly wounded in the blast, losing his leg, but he remained alive and returned to... MORE

Operations by Russian security forces against militants of the armed Islamist underground movement in Dagestan are less frequent now than in previous years, yet they are still a part of life for local residents. Following a special operation near the village of Avadan, in southern... MORE

The government of the Georgian breakaway territory of Abkhazia plans to ramp up its attempts to bring the large Abkhaz diaspora back to the republic. Currently, an estimated 3,500 Abkhaz repatriates are permanently residing in the republic and up to 8,000 have received Abkhazian passports.... MORE

On March 9, unidentified assailants attacked a group of journalists and rights activists in Ingushetia. An estimated 15–20 armed men stopped the minivan with 8 rights activists and journalists in the border area between Ingushetia and Chechnya. The armed men forced the passengers of the... MORE

On March 5, in the fighting for the city of al-Shaddadi in eastern Syria, one of the most influential commanders of the so-called Islamic State (IS), Tarkhan Batirashvili, a.k.a. Umar al-Shishani, was reportedly killed. Batirashvili, was an ethnic Chechen from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge (Rbc.ru, March... MORE

Many analysts say the two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s were caused by the republic’s oil. These analysts, however, have tended to overlook the fact that Chechnya no longer had prospects as an oil extracting region by the time the wars started. Chechnya’s oil... MORE

The government of Stavropol region is set to expand the powers of Cossack patrols in the region. According to new legislation proposed by the regional council, citizens who disobey Cossack patrols now will be subject to fines. Meanwhile, Cossack leaders say that citizens already do... MORE

On February 15, a suicide bomber blew his car and himself up near the Jimikent police checkpoint, in Derbent district, in southern Dagestan. Initially, the news reports suggested that the attack killed two police officers and two civilians. Five other people were injured and several... MORE