News

Relatives of Muslim Attayev, leader of the extremist jamaat (group) Yarmuk killed in Nalchik, have filed an application with the Kabardino-Balkarian prosecutor's office to give them the bodies of his two children that are allegedly hided by instructions of the republican interior minister, some sources say.

An OSCE fact-finding mission set off for Stepanakert on January 30 to collect facts about the creation of Armenian settlements in seven districts of Azerbaijan adjacent to Nagorny Karabakh and controlled by Armenia.

Officers of the Chechen presidential security service, not Russian soldiers were killed when cars were blown up near the village of Alkhan-Kala, Chechnya's Urus-Martan district.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has declared admissible an application lodged by an internally displaced person (IDP) from Chechnya living on the territory of Stavropol Region.

Chair of the Umid (Hope) party Igbal Agazade, who is imprisoned now, may be at the head of the party list of this opposition party in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.

"Efforts of the Council of Europe aimed at developing the South Caucasus, in particular establishing stability and long peace, are positive. Nevertheless, we think that the report by Mr Atkinson has some drawbacks on the whole, along with positive aspects," the spokesman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry said to journalists.

A rally was held in the capital of South Osetia, Tskhinval, in connection with Mikhail Saakashvili's recent speech in Strasbourg, in which he made a suggestion that South Osetia be granted a high degree of autonomy within Georgia.

The Caucasian Knot correspondent in Kabardino-Balkaria, who spent a whole day at the scene of a special operation to destroy a rebel group in Nalchik, is reporting details of the storm.

The trial against Sergey Lapin (better known under the nickname of Kadet), who is suspected of kidnapping Zelimkhan Murdalov in 2004, is underway.

The existence of regional interests and projects in the South Caucasus will not allow the resumption of hostilities, believes military expert Uzeir Dzhafarov.

At about 9 p.m. on January 25, Kabardino-Balkarian police officers encircled a five-story communal house in the suburbs of the republican capital, Nalchik. Members of the extremist jamaat (society) Yarmuk are reported to be hiding in it.

Chechen authorities and law enforcers deny their involvement in the happening, and Maskhadov's relatives (as well as many people in Chechnya) are convinced that the abduction was organized by officers of the Chechen presidential security service.

On January 24, the Georgian and South Osetian co-chairmen of the Combined Control Commission for the Resolution of the Georgian-Osetian Conflict came to an agreement concerning the exchange of hostages.

Ambassador Stephan Minikes pointed to some positive moments. In particular, he mentioned the fact that the Azerbaijan Central Election Commission dismissed several people for violations committed during the municipal election.

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) expresses its deep concern for the fate and whereabouts of Makhmut Magomadov who was detained by a group of camouflaged gunmen in Grozny on 20 January.

Members of the local branch of the Russian Communist Party along with their supporters unveiled a memorial board with a bas-relief of Stalin on the square in front of the Makhachkala station on January 20.

Being already an aged man, Saday Nazarov returned to Azerbaijan on January 11 after he had lived as an emigrant for 10 years in Czechia, where he had refugee status. The professor took on trust the authorities' statements about national reconciliation and resolution of the problem of political prisoners.

An extraordinary meeting of the Combined Control Commission for the Resolution of the Georgian-Osetian Conflict is being held in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Osetia. The meeting was arranged because the problem with hostages taken from both sides was to be settled immediately.

In the time of Aslan Maskhadov, Magomed Magomadov headed a group of investigators in the Chechen prosecutor's office engaged in investigations of cases connected with kidnappings.

Beslan residents who suffered in the terror attack have been picketing the Kavkaz federal rout for the second day. "Our children lie in graves, and we'll lie here until Dzasokhov (president of North Osetia - editor's note) goes away," picketers said to a Caucasian Knot correspondent.