On December 15, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held his now traditional annual phone-in press conference. During the phone-in, Putin mentioned the North Caucasus 21 times.  It appeared that the Prime Minister still credits himself for bringing Chechnya back under Moscow’s control, as he mentioned the... MORE

Almost a year after their arrests just before Christmas 2010, a group of young British Muslims denied charges of “conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life or damage property” (BBC, December 2, 2011). The men, described as being of South Asian origin, are alleged... MORE

The founder of the Dagestani independent weekly newspaper Chernovik, Khadzhimurad Kamalov, was shot to death In Makhachkala late yesterday (December 15). The incident took place around 11:30 pm, local time, near the newspaper’s offices in the Dagestani capital. Kavkazsky Uzel reported that the murder was... MORE

Jund al-Khilafa (JaK) has carried out a string of deadly attacks within Kazakhstan since October. While JaK has come no closer to achieving its goal of bringing down the government of Nursultan Nazarbayev and creating an Islamic state, it has rattled Kazakhstan in a way... MORE

The end of the year is the time to review the year’s events. In the case of the North Caucasus, we can safely conclude that Russian authorities stopped hiding the fact that the situation in the region is alarming (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/195952/) and there are no signs... MORE

A survey in Dagestan has found that 20 percent of the republic’s youth consider themselves moderate Salafis. Only 10 percent of the respondents referred to themselves as Sufis – traditionally the main Muslim branch in Dagestan. The most educated among those who identified themselves as... MORE

It is common practice to summarize the year’s events at its conclusion. Following this tradition, we can consider the figures concerning the situation in the North Caucasus, which is not improving, as the federal authorities in the Russian Federation would like to present it. The... MORE

Dagestan’s Interior Ministry reported today (December 9) that a cache of weapons was discovered in Karabudakhentsky district on the Caspian Sea coast. According to the ministry, police found a bag containing four F-1 hand grenades, five RGD-5 grenades, an RPG-18 grenade launcher, a GP-25 under-barrel... MORE

On November 23, Moscow’s envoy to the North Caucasus, Aleksandr Khloponin, officially confirmed earlier information that the planned large-scale program for economic development of the North Caucasus would not be approved by the end of 2011. Khloponin told a press conference in Makhachkala, Dagestan, that... MORE

In Dagestan, the deputy director of the Makhachkala Industrial-Economic College, Nazhmudin Abdulkerimov, was found shot to death yesterday (December 1) in his car in the village of Semender. A law-enforcement source said the body had a gunshot wound to the head. A source in the... MORE