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11. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 7, Issue 25

Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The death of Chechen separatist leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev was first announced by Chechen government officials on June 17. Interfax quoted Chechen government minister Muslim Khuchiev as saying that Sadulaev was killed in a special operation in the city of Argun—Sadulaev's hometown— when members of the Chechen Interior Ministry's Akhmad Kadyrov special task regiment and the Argun police, acting on "operational information," established Sadulaev's location and killed him when he put up armed resistance. "At the moment we have no doubts about the fact that Saidulaev has really been liquidated," Interfax quoted Argun Police Chief Ali Tagirov as saying. "We are located next to his body; it has been identified by people who knew him very well." (The rebel leader was referred to as "Saidulaev" rather than "Sadulaev" in most reports about his death by Chechen government officials and Russian news agencies.) Tagirov added that a hostage was freed during the operation. "Two militants from among Saidulaev's bodyguards took a hostage with them and tried to use him as cover, however during the course of the armed clash police managed to liberate him." He said that a policeman and a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer were killed in the shoot-out, but that the hostage was unharmed. Tagirov refused to identify the hostage, but gave a few other details about the operation. "The operation was carried out in the residential area on Ulitsa Svobody," where Sadulaev and his associates were discovered in a private home, he said. That part of Argun is known as the "Indian Hamlet." Tagirov said that a search was underway for the two rebel bodyguards.
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and Government
Political Geography:
Russia and Chechnya

12. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 7, Issue 24

Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The violence in Ingushetia spiraled upward another notch on June 9, when gunmen fired on an SUV carrying Musa Nalgiev, the commander of the republic's OMON special police, killing him along with three of his children, a bodyguard, and a driver. Russian and Western news agencies reported that the attack occurred in the town of Karabulak when gunmen first blocked Nalgiev's car with their own car and then opened fire with automatic weapons. Nalgiev was reportedly taking his children, who ranged in age from 2 to 6, to kindergarten. Kommersant reported on June 12 that Nalgiev's wife and teenage son were also in the car at the time of the attack, and that a moment before his death, a mortally-wounded Nalgiev yelled at the three attackers: "I am here! Don't fire on the car, scum, there are children there!" According to the newspaper, the gunmen fired until they were out of ammunition, reloaded their weapons, after which one of them opened the door of the car next to where the three children were sitting and shot at them until he ran out of ammo. Kommersant reported that investigators found 120 shell casings at the murder scene, but after running forensic tests on them found that the assault rifles from which they were fired had not been used in other crimes. In addition, the attackers left no cigarette butts, hair, or pieces of clothing at the scene that could be used track them down.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Chechnya, and Ingushetia

13. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 7, Issue 23

Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Memorial has published a report about a secret Interior Ministry prison in Grozny where, according to the human rights group, people were tortured and killed. According to the report, which was posted on Memorial's website (Memo.ru) on June 5, at the end May Memorial staffers were able to enter a now-empty building in the center of the Chechen capital that had until recently housed an operational group of the federal Interior Ministry in Grozny's Oktyabrsky district. From 2000 to 2003, the building had housed the Temporary Department of Internal Affairs (VOVD) of the Oktyabrsky district. Based on abundant evidence found there by Memorial staffers, the report stated: "Detained and arrested people were tortured in the Oktyabrsky district VOVD. Many of the people taken there disappeared without a trace."
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Russia and Chechnya

14. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 7, Issue 21

Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Four federal Interior Ministry troops were killed and three wounded in an ambush by rebel fighters in Chechnya's Vedeno on May 24, Russian and Western news agencies reported. According to the online journal Gazeta, a Russian Interior Ministry unit was ambushed near the settlement of Eshilkhatoi in central Vedeno district at around 11:30 PM local time on May 23 (Gazeta, May 25). The unit was reportedly searching for a group of 15-20 suspected militants spotted in the region earlier that day. The three wounded servicemen, including one major, were first treated at the Khankala base outside Grozny and later at the Russian military base at Mozdok, North Ossetia, from where they were flown to the Internal Troops' Central Military Clinical Hospital in the city of Balashikha outside Moscow. Additional units were deployed to block off the area where the ambush occurred, with troops actively searching for the attackers. As Gazeta noted, however, past experience shows that the perpetrators of such attacks are apprehended "extremely rarely." "They often simply dissolve among the inhabitants of local villages," the website observed. "Furthermore, the extremists are better familiarized with the locality and know all of the forest and mountain trails. We would also note that the Vedeno district is considered to be Shamil Basaev's ancestral lands."
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Chechnya, and Moscow

15. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 7, Issue 20 (May 18, 2006)

Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
A roadside bomb detonated on the outskirts of Nazran, Ingushetia, on May 17, killing Ingushetian Deputy Interior Minister Dzhabrail Kostoev, his two bodyguards and four civilians. Kavkazky Uzel and the Associated Press reported on May 17 that the incident took place in the Nasyr-Kortovsky municipal district when a parked car exploded next to a passing convoy that included Kostoev's vehicle. Kommersant reported on May 18 that Kostoev was on his way to work from his home in the village Ekazhevo in Nazran's suburbs and that the bomb in the parked VAZ-2109 detonated just after the convoy, which included Kostoev's armored Chevrolet jeep and two accompanying Volgas, crossed a bridge over a small river known locally as Nazranovka. According to the newspaper, the blast took place at the precise moment that Kostoev's jeep was passing the VAZ-2109. "The blast hurled the jeep forward and to the left, onto the median strip, around 25 meters, and at that time a Zhiguli… with four construction workers inside who were driving to work, came toward it. The jeep flew into the Zhiguli, the [collision] was very strong, the gas tank caught fire and both cars blew up," Ingushetian Interior Ministry press secretary Nazir Yevloev told the newspaper, adding that the passengers in both cars died immediately. According to Kommersant, virtually nothing remained of the VAZ-2109 that contained the explosives or the Zhiguli that was hit by Kostoev's jeep. The explosion left the jeep a burned-out shell. Ingushetia's chief prosecutor, Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov, told Kommersant that the force of the blast equaled roughly 100 kilograms of TNT.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Chechnya, and Ingushetia

16. Chechnya Weekly: Abdurakhmanov floats unification trial balloon

Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The speaker of Chechnya's parliament has called for the unification of Chechnya and Ingushetia—and, possibly, Dagestan. In an interview with Interfax on April 24, Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov called the liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic in June 1992 a historical mistake. "I am firmly convinced that it was a gross historical mistake made for the sake of the ambitious mercenary interests of individual politicians of Checheno-Ingushetia and the then-ruling elite of Moscow," he told the news agency. Reunification, he said, would "forever extirpate possible centers of tension" and effectively resolve the lingering dispute over the administrative border between Chechnya and Ingushetia and jurisdiction over the Sunzhensky district, through which that administrative border passes.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Chechnya, Moscow, Ingushetia, and Dagestan

17. Chechnya Weekly: Alkhanov, rights group differ over number of "disappeared"

Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said on April 10 that 14 people have been abducted since the beginning of the year, Interfax reported. "Unfortunately, the problem of kidnappings has not been fully resolved but the rate of registered abductions has shrunk," Alkhanov said at a meeting with a visiting United Nations delegation headed by UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. "Seventy people were kidnapped over the same period last year. The entire human rights community recognizes the positive trend in matters related to human rights and abductions. Statistically the crime rate in Chechnya is below the Russian average."
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

18. Chechnya Weekly: SADULAEV: THE RUSSIANS ARE LOSING

Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The Chechen separatist Daymohk website on April 3 published an address by Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev. The Chechen rebel president claimed his forces had destroyed "dozens of pieces of enemy equipment" on "all fronts of the war" this winter. "The most odious figures in the camp of the national traitors, who were decorated with medals and crosses by their bosses, have also been liquidated," Sadulaev said. "God has helped us to defeat them. The greatest successes have been achieved in Dagestan where the traitors' leaders have been wiped out. Successful combat operations are also being waged in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, although not so actively as in the main areas of the mujahideen's attacks in Ingushetia, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygeya."
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Kabardino

19. Chechnya Weekly: WHAT MADE CHECHEN SCHOOLCHILDREN ILL?

Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Leonid Roshal, the Moscow pediatrician sought out by the Beslan hostage-takers as a negotiator and who was awarded by the Russian government for his assistance during the October 2002 Dubrovka theater hostage crisis, said on March 27 that he disagrees with the official explanation for the mass illness of children in Chechnya during the last several months—a nervous disorder—and believes instead that it was caused by poisoning.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Chechnya, and Moscow

20. Chechnya Weekly: CHECHNYA SEEKS TO LOWER PRESIDENTIAL AGE REQUIREMENT

Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Chechen Labor and Social Development Minister Magomed Vakhaev on March 22 called for a series of amendments to the republic's constitution, including changing the age requirement for the Chechen president. "In the Constitution of the Chechen Republic there are quite a few norms, provisions, which require substantial editorial correcting," Vakhaev said at a ceremony marking the third anniversary of the constitution's adoption, Nezavisimaya gazeta reported on March 23. "According to the constitution in force, a person who has reached the age of 30 can become president. It seems to us that this requirement is not based on anything and needs to be repealed." Many "contradictions" that "slipped into" the constitution need to be "eliminated," Vakhaev said.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya