Chechnya: news | arguments | facts
21 December 2007 Putin urges secret services to raise barriers to terrorism
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday urged the secret services to put a safe barrier to international terrorism, drug trafficking and contraband.
He said he expected the secret services to prevent destabilization of the situation in the country by international terrorists. Addressing officers of security agencies on the day of their professional holiday, Putin said a lot of sizable blows have been delivered on international terrorism over the past few years.
The FSB border service must make new major steps to raise the level of protection of Russian borders, first of all at the most important North Caucasian section, he stressed.
Putin said work must be boosted to equip the state border with state-of-the-at technical means. He also thanked the border guards for their work, stressing, however, that a lot is still to be done.
The number of terrorist attacks in Russia this year reduced by 60 percent, the chief of the federal security service FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, told the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, of which he is chairman, earlier.
The level of the terrorist threat has been reduced considerably in contrast with the previous year. The number of committed terrorist attacks was down by 60 percent, from 112 in 2006 to 40 in 2007, Patrushev said.
In all, the number of terrorism-related offences registered in Russia in January-November was down by 44 percent as compared with the same period last year.
The security services succeeded in preventing over 70 terrorist acts in the North Caucasus in 2007, also terrorist acts with the use of suicide bombers, Nikolai Patrushev told chief editors of the leading Russian media on Wednesday.
With the threat of terrorism heightening in the world, it has been possible to decrease the level of terrorism in Russia considerably in 2007, he said. Thus, 257 terrorist acts were registered in 2005, 112 in 2006, and 41 in 2007, Patrushev noted. Some 150 militants voluntarily abandoned their illegal activities this year.
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20 December 2007 Four killers of hunters in Kabardino-Balkaria identified
Four bandits, who killed nine hunters and gamekeepers near Lechinkai, the Chegem district of Kabardino-Balkaria last November, were identified, the chief of the detective department in the Kabardino-Balkar Interior Ministry, Khyzir Zhashuyev, told reporters on Thursday. The suspects were not earlier put on the wanted list.
The structure of the dugout, where the killed hunters were found, and the manner of their murder showed that the crime was committed by bandits, who underwent the training or fought in Chechnya, Zhashuyev said. He noted that the spacious dugout had a special entrance to protect the bandits from direct strikes.
Zhashuyev confirmed that five gamekeepers were tortured before the death and were shot down in the dugout. The bodies of four hunters were found tied up about 25 meters away from the dugout without the traces of torture. They were killed by two shots in the back of the head.
Nine gamekeepers and hunters were found dead on November 4 in the forest near Lechinkai, the Chegem district of the republic. The investigation of the murder was passed to the Main Investigation Department of the Investigation Committee under the Prosecutor Generals Office in the Southern Federal District, because the investigation was difficult and highly publicized. The republican law enforcement agencies said about 50 gunmen, who were involved in the raid on Nalchik in October 2005, are hiding in the republican
forests.
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19 December 2007 One militant killed in clashes in Dagestan
Clashes have occurred between police officers and a group of militants in Dagestan's Untsukul district, where a counter terrorist operation began, an officer from the Untsukul District Interior Department told Interfax. . "The shooting occurred at around 10 a.m. in the mountain woods near the Vremenny village. There is no information about casualties so far," he said.
"According to early reports, one militant was killed in the shooting," acting chief spokesman for Dagestan's Interior Ministry Mark Tolchinsky told Interfax.
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Russia - Chechnya
Chechen history
Chechens one the worlds most ancient people
Chechens (self-assumed name " nokhchi" ) are the world" s most ancient people with unique anthropological type and culture. They are the largest ethnic group in the North Caucasus (more than 1 million people). The neighbouring Ingush people are very similar in genotype, culture and religion. Together they form the Vainakh people related by blood, common history, territorial, economic and cultural links and language.
Vainakhs (Chechens, Ingushes) are aborigines of the Caucasus and speak Nakh, a language that belongs to the Iberian-Caucasian language family. The Vainakh (Chechen) ethnic and cultural complex was formed on the basis of various aboriginal people. Historically the Chechen community was formed as multi-ethnic and it kept absorbing ethnic elements of nomadic people and neighbouring high-landers, the evidence of which being the non-Vainakh origin of many Chechen clans.
The history of Chechnya can be described as a continuing struggle for freedom and independence against outside enemies, in which periods of prosperity alternated with defeats and new attempts to revive the statehood. In the early Middle Ages (4th-12th centuries) Chechens had to take up arms to defend themselves against invaders from Rome, Sasanid Iran, Arab Caliphate and Khazar Kaganate. The centuries-long struggle forged a military union of highlanders and laid the foundation for their statehood.
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Issue 510
