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May 16, 2009 SNIPPET: "There have been a number of reports of foreign fighters, with possible links to al-Qaeda, fighting alongside hardline Islamists of al-Shabaab and Hisbul-Islam, said Mr Carson, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. "We're extremely worried about the reports." "There seem to be fairly serious and creditable reports that al Shabaab does have, amongst its fighters, a number of individuals of South Asian and Chechen origin," said Mr Carson. "This is a very disturbing situation and reflects the seriousness of the problem in Somalia." Mr Carson also expressed concern about flights from Eritrea were...

Meet Amir Abu Zarr, a former Chechen jihadi who somehow couldn't get back into Russia from Turkey and is now fighting in Afghanistan. Someone call the "experts" over at the State Department who continue to claim that the ongoing Chechen conflict has nothing to do with the global jihad, that the fighters there are not connected to al Qaeda, and that we should all just move along and shut our pie holes because Chechnya is just a local nationalistic movement! Also, it appears that Abu Zarr is some kind of magical elf. Look at the ears.

Being dragged from a car by Calgary police brought back memories for a Chechen refugee of the civil war in which he lost both legs, a lawsuit says. The $350,000 claim, filed by Calgary resident Suleyman Salamov, alleges cops even broke one of his artificial legs before letting him go without even a charge. Salamov's lawsuit says he was a passenger in a car on Feb. 26, 2008, when it was pulled over and the driver arrested. Police stopped the vehicle being driven by Elcha Khazayev, smashed the driver's side window and removed him from the car, the claim says....

The Russian authorities have confirmed a prominent opponent of the pro-Kremlin Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot dead in Dubai on Saturday. Diplomats said Sulim Yamadayev's body had been identified by his relatives. Mr Yamadayev fell out with Mr Kadyrov last year and was sacked as commander of an elite security forces battalion.

The murder of a Chechen man in Vienna on January 13 threatens to derail a torture case against Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov in Austria, in which the victim was a key witness. The 27-year-old Umar Israilov, a former anti-Russian guerrilla later forced to join Kadyrov's security forces, said he had himself seen the Chechen president and his men torture opponents, in an interview with the New York Times last December. "How can we go on without the main witness?" said a representative of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), which filed a complaint last June in Vienna.

The Russian-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov will inaugurate the "largest mosque in Europe" on October 17 in Chechnya, the Russian official news agency Novosty reported. Over 10,000 worshipers will be able to pray inside the mosque, which will be named after the president's father, Ahmad Kadyrov, who was killed in 2004. "The largest mosque in Europe... will by inaugurated on the first day of the International Peacemakers' Conference, titled 'Islam - Religion of Peace and Progress,'" the grand mufti of Chechnya, Sultan Mirzayev, told the press. Mirzayev underlined that approximately 50 countries have already approved their participation in the three-day...

Five men from Chechnya were arrested after an attack on reception centre for asylum seekers at Våler 45 kilometres southeast of Oslo. More than 20 people were injured, including an 11 year-old boy. The attack was directed at Kurdish and Arab guests living Nordbybråthen transit centre in Østfold County. "Some of those arrested were picked near the centre and others were picked up in other places. Two came out of the woods nearby," says police chief Otto Stærk. The first arrests were made at 5am on Friday morning. The five Chechens will be interviewed by police on Friday. The Police...

Chechen rebel urges global jihadBy Richard Galpin BBC News, Grozny A Chechen Muslim rebel leader is reported to have described the US, Britain and Israel as legitimate targets in a jihad, or holy war. Doku Umarov said it was not just the Russian security forces who deserved to be attacked. The separatist leader said all those who fight Muslims anywhere in the world were enemies. Other Chechen separatists have denounced the statement, which was sent to US-backed Radio Liberty. It was made earlier this month, apparently to coincide with the birthday of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but a video of...

“Chechen Switzerland” – that is the way president of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov calls the villages that earlier appeared in military news. The first tourists expected to come to the republic in the future are students of biological, historical, and geological faculties.

LOS ANGELES -- In September 2004, just days after Chechen rebels raided a school in Beslan, Russia, killing 331 men, women and children, the Los Angeles Police Department summoned senior officers to its decaying downtown headquarters. The issue on the table: What would they do if a similar attack took place here? Most of the talk that morning was about where to deploy SWAT teams if terrorists ever took over a local school. Detective Mark Severino, one of the city's counterterrorist investigators, then asked his colleagues: "Do we even have Chechen extremists in Los Angeles?" Blank stares and silence filled...

SIDON, Lebanon -- Not so long ago, the Russian camp was a war zone. Today, the biggest bang most of the 250 military engineers here encounter is the 5 a.m. wake-up call at the sandy settlement of 50 or so tents nestled against the Mediterranean. The relative calm is largely due to the end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. But it's also because two platoons of elite soldiers plucked from the Army's 42nd Division's East and West battalions, based in Chechnya, are standing guard. "Everything is calm here," says Rasud Baimuratov, commander of one of the platoons. An ethnic...

Anna Politkovskaya, the famous journalist and political commentator from Novaya Gazeta was killed in Moscow. This was reported by Novaya Gazeta's chief editor Dmitri Muratov to the radio station Echo of Moscow. The murder occurred around 5 in the evening on Lesnaya Street, where Politkovskaya lived. An unknown man in dark clothing shot her with a pistol. A police source reported to Interfax that a neighbor of the journalist found her body in the elevator. Police also found a discarded Makarov pistol and four empty cartridges. Politkovskaya's home is now cordoned off by the police, reported ITAR-TASS. The police are...

Suspected terrorist Willie Brigitte was reportedly sent to Australia to help a local terror group prepare a terrorist act "of great size". Brigitte, 35, who was deported last October and is in French custody, was a link figure in the world terrorist network who had connections with the organisers of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the March 11 Madrid train blasts, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported. It said his potential targets included the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and the Australian army's administrative compound at Victoria Barracks, both in Sydney, and the Perth headquarters of Australia's SAS regiment. French authorities...

Demise of Shamil BasayevBy Pyotr Romanov UPI Outside View Commentator MOSCOW -- Russia's latest Caucasian war appears to be over, and the killing of warlord Shamil Basayev is yet another serious argument in favor of this opinion. Individuals have always played a particularly important role in the Caucasus. Now that Basayev is dead, there is no one else in the region to hate Russia and despise life, his own and the lives of others, as much as he did. Basayev's formidable hatred of Russians was irrational, although he and others sometimes explained it by the logic of the life-or-death struggle...

Chechen ambush 'kills Russians' At least six Russian soldiers have been killed in an attack by suspected militants in Chechnya, Russia's Interfax news agency reports. It says at least 10 other soldiers were wounded when their column was ambushed near Chechnya's capital, Grozny. A Chechen prosecutor said the attack took place on a road between Avtury and Serzhen-Yurt. Chechnya has been torn by two wars over the last 12 years, pitting Russian forces against separatist rebels. "The column was ambushed in the Shali district in the afternoon. Six died from wounds. More than 10 suffered wounds," Chechen prosecutor Valery...

Chechen rebel leader Sadulayev killed By KAZBEK VAKHAYEV, Associated Press Writer 30 minutes ago The Chechen rebel leader was killed in a special police operation in his hometown on Saturday, authorities said. Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev was killed in his hometown of Argun, a city nine miles east of Grozny. The press service of the Moscow-backed Chechen prime minister confirmed Russian media reports of his death. The Interfax news agency quoted Muslim Khuchiyev, a minister in the local administration, as saying that police acted on a tip, tracked down Sadulayev and killed him when he offered resistance. Further details of the operation...

Miss Chechnya Beauty Contest The Winner: Vigrala Zamira Dyabrailova

Beslan hostage-taker gets lifeFrom: Reuters From correspondents in Vladikavkaz May 26, 2006 A RUSSIAN court has sentenced the only surviving Beslan hostage-taker to life in prison for his part in the bloody 2004 school siege that killed 331 people. Nurpashi Kulayev, a Chechen carpenter born in 1980, was found guilty on all charges, which included terrorism and murder. He had pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors had requested the death penalty for Kulayev, but Judge Tamerlan Aguzarov said a current moratorium on capital punishment ruled that out. "(Kulayev) deserves the death sentence but because the Russian Government has introduced a moratorium on...

Hamas leader says Chechnya is Russia's 'internal problem,' Chechen rebels protest By: Associated Press Published: March 5, 2006 The leader of radical Palestinian group Hamas said Friday that the conflict in breakaway Chechnya was Russia's internal problem, provoking a protest from the Chechen rebels. "It is Russia's internal problem. We do not interfere in other states' internal problems," Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal said after talks in Moscow. Chechnya, a mainly Muslim province in southern Russia, has been wracked by two conflicts in the past decade between Russian troops and Chechen separatists. Although large-scale fighting has ended, regular skirmishes and...

Chechen Rebel Leaders Blast Hamas for Russia Talks Chechnya’s rebels have slammed Hamas, saying leaders of the Palestinian group had given their blessing to the “murder of the Chechen people” by meeting top Russian officials, Reuters reported. The Islamist militant group, which swept to victory in Palestinian elections in January, is currently visitng Moscow in a bid to win support from a major foreign power since it is shunned as a terrorist group by Israel and Washington. Chechen separatist leaders said the group had sold out its principles, and showed itself as hungry for power as corrupt officials who governed...