Free Republic

Georgian-Russian business forum will take place in Moscow today. According to the head of the center of Cooperation between Russia and Georgia Giorgi Seturidze the forum is held on the initiative of the Russian partners, informs Geotimes.ge. From the Georgian side in a forum take the representatives of the Banking Association of Georgia, Georgian wine exporters Association, the airlines' Airzena ", the representatives of tourism companies and others. The Forum is held in order to achieve the economic successes. It will consist of two parts. The first part is intended for the presentation of the Georgian side, during which will...

On March 21, the Georgian Parliament passed constitution amendment limiting presidential powers with the vast majority of votes. Georgian President Mikhael Saakashvili will no longer be able to sack the Georgian Parliament with one swift stroke now that the amendment was passed with 135 votes. People have been wondering who was going to win the big showdown in the Georgian Parliament on March 21, 2013. Well, it depends on who you ask and still there are those who think Saakashvili's ability to land on his feet is like a cat. No doubt Saakashvili will try to make a big thing...

-excerpt- As far as the Islamic Republic is concerned, anti-Americanism may be even more important than professing Islam. This is why Tehran has forged close ties with the handful of regimes across the globe that, each for a reason of its own, shares that visceral hatred of the US. -exceprt- In the dispute over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran supported Christian Armenia against Shia Muslim Azerbaijan. The reason was Armenia's close ties with Russia, while Azerbaijan had become an ally of the US and established full diplomatic ties with Israel. What mattered for the Khomeinist regime was not Islam but...

As Georgians head to the polls Monday, analysts are warning that rising tensions could boil over just as the Russian military is conducting exercises near the de facto border line, a situation the Georgia government is worried Moscow could exploit. "We hope it will be made clear to Russia that a military invasion into Georgia with the goal of destroying Georgia's sovereignty, which is still the goal of the Kremlin, will have a huge at minimum political price for Russia in its relationship with Western powers," Georgia's National Security Advisor Giga Bokeria told The Cable in a phone interview from...

For years...biased and ignorant journalists, academics, think-tank analysts, and foundation activists trumpeted the Chechen separatists as victims and ignored the pivotal role of global and local Jihadists. Their version of [suicide] attacks [in Russia] had to fit this paradigm [sound familiar?].

In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department's headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled "Azerbaijan's discreet symbiosis with Israel." The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country's relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: "nine-tenths of it is below the surface." Why does it matter? Because Azerbaijan is strategically located on Iran's northern border and, according to several high-level sources I've spoken with inside the U.S. government, Obama administration officials now believe that the "submerged" aspect of the Israeli-Azerbaijani...

    Summer 2000 (8.2) Scandinavian Ancestry Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan by Thor Heyerdahl Above: Thor Heyerdahl with Peruvian children who still construct traditional boats made of reeds, the principle material that enabled early migrations on trans-oceanic voyages. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl. Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles ...

According to RIA Novosti's source within the Russian special forces, information about a planned terrorist attack along the route of the "Sapsan" was obtained by the FSB from an informer embedded within the North Kavkaz terror network. According to the source, the conscripted agent informed the FSB that leaders of the Dagestan terror network sent Islam Hamuzhev, a resident of Kabardino-Balkariya, to Moscow for the execution of the planned act. Prior to his departure, Islam completed a bomb-making course in a terrorist camp in Dagestan. Hamuzhev's plan, when in Moscow, was to find like-minded persons to execute the act...

This confrontation is particularly acute in Dagestan. Here, Salafis, who believe in a return to the teachings of early leaders of the Muslim faith, face off against Sufis, who are supported by the official Spiritual Board of Muslims. There is intolerance on both sides. In Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital, a Salafi woman dressed in a hijab and floor-length tunic showed me a recording on her cell phone of Sheikh Said-Afandi, one of the republic's most revered Sufi leaders. "Disgusting," she said, as she watched scores of the sheikh's murids (followers) lining up to kiss his hands. "No man should make...

An image from an observation camera inside the international arrivals hall at "Domodedovo" shows the aftermath of the blast (image copyright lenta.ru) The brothers Islam and Iles Yandiev, suspected as accessories to the terrorist attack in the Moscow airport "Domodedovo," were transported to Moscow, according to a RIA Novosti report of April 2nd. According to a member of the law enforcement agencies of the North Kavkaz federal region, Yandievs were transported to the capital under guard in a transport airplane. The Yandievs were transferred from the North Osetian trial detention facility to the Moscow jail "Lefortovo." The suspects were detained...

NAZRAN, RUSSIA - Neiba scrapes out a meager income selling soil-caked clumps of wild garlic she picks in the forests of Russia's poorest province - an occupation that a growing Islamic insurgency has made increasingly hazardous. "I will only go to the forest with my husband, and even then, we are terrified every time," said Neiba, 43, as she adjusted her bright red hijab at the sprawling outdoor market in Nazran, Ingushetia's largest town. "What if we see a rebel?" "But we must make a living," she said, flashing her remaining four teeth, each of them encased in gold.

Snippet: "On the other hand, this would be the fifth time he's been killed."

"In justifying Budanov, we automatically recognize Chechnya as an independent state" An unpublished interview with Attorney Markelov We are printing a hitherto unknown interview with Stanislav Markelov, taken after he had returned from Chechnya in the early part of June 2002. Back then 'Stas' had become an attorney for the Kungayevs, the Chechen family accusing Colonel Budanov of abducting, raping, and murdering their daughter, 18 year-old Elsa Kungayeva. This is the first time that this interview, taken six and a half years ago, has been published. At the invitation of human rights groups 'Memorial', 'Civic Assistance', and others, in the...

"Russia: Suicide car bomb at city's central market kills at least 17, wounds 133 in northern Caucasus" SNIPPET: "The attacker detonated his explosives as he drove by the main entrance to the Vladikavkaz market, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry." SNIPPET: "The market and its surrounding blocks has been the target of several bomb attacks over the past dozen years, in which scores of people have died."

Aug 2010: Many women complain they have been harassed by bands of men for not wearing headscarves in Chechnya. Some of the assailants said they were working under orders from religious authorities. Aug 2010: Chechnya's mufti Sultan Mirzayev, the region's spiritual leader and a close ally of Kadyrov, makes the radical order that all eateries shut completely for the holy month of Ramadan. Though it carries no legal weight, it is followed through, residents and witnesses say. July 2010: Hardline, Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says in a state TV interview that he was grateful to assailants who targeted women...

On a Monday morning, March 29, suicide bombers attacked two metro stations in the heart of Moscow. The detonations, timed 40 minutes apart during rush hour for maximum damage, in some ways resembled the 2004 commuter-train attack in Madrid, the July 7 bombings in London a year later and numerous other public acts of terrorism around the globe. These similarities were not lost on world leaders, who were quick to express not just sympathy but also empathy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, "When Moscow is attacked, we are all attacked." In June, just days before the exposure of a U.S.-based...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The price tag on a bride in Russia's Ingushetia province has been tripled by the regional government, in a sign the Muslim North Caucasus region is slipping out of Kremlin control as sharia law eclipses Russian. Against the backdrop of a bubbling Islamist insurgency, the revival of Islam in the North Caucasus following the break-up of the Soviet Union almost 20 years ago has brought sharia law to the region, revered by both rebels and ordinary citizens alike. The issue of the 'kalym', a price paid by a groom to the family of the woman he chooses...

THE Daily Mail has learnt that Israel is massing warplanes in the Caucasus for an attack on Iran. Preparations are underway to launch the military attack form Azerbaijan and Georgia, reports Akhbar Al Khaleej, quoting military sources. It has been reported that Israel was, in fact, training pilots in Turkey to launch the strike and was smuggling planes into Georgia using Turkish airspace, according to the sources.

Russia launched large-scale military exercises involving thousands of troops across parts of its southern regions on Monday which Georgia said would violate its territory. The Defence Ministry said the sweep of the week-long "Caucasus 2009" manoeuvres would include the volatile, mainly-Muslim regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia - continuing focus of rebel groups seeking to prize the area from Moscow's control. Moscow sees the Caucasus mountains area as a strategically vital zone, the approach to prime agricultural and industrial regions and an important energy transit route. The Kremlin views any challenge here as a threat to the overall security and...

Russian security forces dealt a double blow to the al Qaeda-linked Caucasus Emirate during operations in the southern Russian republics late last week. Emir Magas, the military commander of the Caucasus Emirate, was captured and Yasir Amarat, a wanted terrorist commander from Jordan, was killed during raids by Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB. On June 9, the FSB captured Emir Magas, whose real name is Ali Taziyev, during a raid in the village of Malgobek in the Republic of Ingushetia. Kavkaz Center, a jihadist website that supports the Caucasus Emirate, confirmed Magas' capture and noted his importance. Magas has...