On September 18, the authorities in Dagestan closed down the Gimry tunnel, citing the ongoing counter-terrorist operation in Untsukul district. A counter-terrorist operation was also introduced in the adjacent Buinaksk district on September 17. Locals estimated that over 1,000 military personnel blocked the areas around... MORE

Chechens have been quite active in the ranks of the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the past two to three years. Chechens have formed several groups that made waves in a country that is alien to them, both culturally and linguistically, as... MORE

Persistent rumors have existed for some time about the involvement of Chechens in pro-Russian military groups fighting in eastern Ukraine (see EDM, July 18). A significant portion of the information about Chechens fighting in Ukraine was unverified; indeed, it sometimes seemed the Ukrainian army was... MORE

On September 7, representatives of the Turkish government-owned company Caykur met with North Ossetia’s Prime Minister Sergei Takoev to discuss an investment project in the Russian republic. Caykur applied for a swath of land in North Ossetia on which to build a tea packing plant... MORE

September 8 marked a year since Ramazan Abdulatipov became governor of Dagestan. Abdulatipov was officially appointed governor of the region in September 2013, even though he had been the acting interim head of the republic since January 2013. Despite Moscow’s approval of Abdulatipov and the... MORE

The armed resistance in the North Caucasus is transforming and adapting to the new conditions under the Caucasus Emirate’s new emir. September 7 marked exactly one year since the death of the insurgency’s former leader, Doku Umarov (Kavkavsky Uzel, March 18). Umarov was poisoned by... MORE

Russian observers reacted quite strongly to an Internet video released by the Islamic State, the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that is operating in Iraq and Syria as well as Lebanese border areas, in which militants are threatening... MORE

At the end of July, the governor of Adygea, Aslan Tkhakushinov, and the chief of the Kuban Cossack Forces, Nikolai Doluda, unexpectedly announced that the Cossacks would start conducting public safety patrols in the republic. The Kuban Cossack Forces are based in Krasnodar region and... MORE

The Ukrainian crisis has overshadowed the continuing low-level insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus. Besides shifting public attention, the conflict in Ukraine is evidently shifting Russian forces from the volatile region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. For years, the best combat-ready Russian forces... MORE

August 2014 turned out to be an ordinary month for the North Caucasus as there was no change in the fighting between the government and the insurgency. The insurgents staged attacks in Dagestan, Chechens fought in the ranks of the jihadists in Syria and Iraq.... MORE