No one could have predicted a scandal would erupt when, on April 3, the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAK) reported that security forces had killed five rebels in Ingushetia’s main city, Nazran. The authorities acknowledged there was a woman among the slain rebels. According to... MORE

On April 6, the president of Dagestan, Magomedsalam Magomedov, met with Russian Deputy Interior Minister Sergei Gerasimov in Makhachkala. The chief police official of the North Caucasus Federal District, Sergei Chenchik, and the chief of the Russian Interior Ministry’s police aviation and special units, Vladimir... MORE

Suspected militants have attacked police in Kabardino-Balkaria and Ingushetia, with the latter republic experiencing a recent uptick in insurgency-related violence.In Kabardino-Balkaria today (April 6), two suspected rebels who attacked a police officer were killed in a special operation in Nalchik. According to local authorities, the... MORE

Under military pressure from its neighbors on several fronts, Somalia’s al-Shabaab/al-Qaeda Islamist militants are beginning to show fractures in the solidarity of their leadership after losing several key towns and regions. As the movement faces the worst situation it has experienced in several years, it... MORE

March appeared to be a fairly successful month for the Russian security services that carried out counterterrorism operations in Kabardino-Balkaria. On March 29, Kabardino-Balkaria’s parliament, along with republican Interior Minister Sergei Vasiliev, appealed to Moscow’s envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, Aleksandr Khloponin, asking... MORE

On March 30, an estimated 50 relatives of the murdered member of Karachaevo-Cherkessian parliament, Islam Krymshamkhalov, staged a protest near the office of Moscow’s envoy to the North Caucasus, Aleksandr Khloponin, in Pyatigorsk. Krymshamkhalov was killed near the Karachaevo-Cherkessian Supreme Court in Cherkessk in January... MORE

On March 30, Ingushetia’s opposition published an open appeal to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The opposition in the republic, which is organized in a group called Mekhk-Khel (People’s Council), demanded the Russian president “force a return of the situation in the republic to the proper... MORE

A car being driven by a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer blew up today (March 30) in Ingushetia’s main city, Nazran. The explosion wounded the officer, identified as Ruslan Yandiev, and his wife, who was traveling in the car with him and reportedly also works... MORE

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) continues to grab attention due to its ever changing dynamics, whether it is its association with Al-Qaeda and attempts to conduct acts of international terrorism, or internal power struggle between its leadership. While the Waziristan region remains in the limelight in... MORE

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)-Darra Adamkhel chapter claimed to have killed Haji Mangal Bagh, their rival and head of Taliban-styled Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) militant outfit, in a suicide attack in Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency on March 9, 2012 (The News International, March 10, 2012). Around 23... MORE