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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...using small cells to strike at the structures of power - this is what Umarov is now carrying out," says Andrei Soldatov, a security expert and political commentator in Moscow. In other ways, too, the bomb laid on the tracks of the Neva Express bore the trademarks of Umarov's new approach. As rescue workers sifted through the wreckage, a second explosion at the scene of the bombing injured Russia's chief investigator in the Prosecutor General's office, Alexander Bastrykin, a close ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "This tactic is used by terrorists in the North Caucasus," Bastrykin...
...impoverished Russian regions of the North Caucasus, this would be nothing new. Centuries of Kremlin rule have failed to stamp out the Islamist resistance there, and suicide attacks and assassinations are not uncommon. Umarov, the self-appointed leader of the Caucasus emirate he proclaimed in 2007, is now waging a terrorist campaign to turn at least six regions into a new, independent state governed by radical Islamic law. Up to now, his methods have focused on localized guerrilla warfare, sending suicide bombers or gunmen to hit police targets or pick off officials from the Kremlin-backed regional governments...
...practice, however, the new campaign does not appear to shy from hitting human targets too. On Aug. 17, in an attack that Umarov's battalion later claimed responsibility for, a truck packed with explosives rammed through the gates of a police station in the city of Nazran in the North Caucasus and detonated its payload, killing 25 policemen and injuring more than 150 others as they lined up for the morning head count. The group also took responsibility for a hydroelectric-dam accident that killed 75 people in Siberia on the same day. But the attack on the Neva Express...
...Umarov's terrorist campaign continues, the exiled Musayev fears a ruthless response from Putin's government. "This could play right into the Kremlin's hands," he says. "It could give them an excuse to retaliate against the regular citizens in Chechnya who sympathize with the resistance, to bring new troops there, to tighten the screws just as they've always done when our leaders take responsibility for these crimes...
After months of delay, Arturo Valenzuela was finally confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs last month. But for a job with such a long title, he may find it's short on clout these days. Ostensibly, Valenzuela is President Obama's new point man on Latin America; in reality, that job looks to be under the control of Republicans in Congress and conservatives inside Obama's own diplomatic corps. In fact, when it comes to U.S. policy in Latin America - as events this week in Honduras suggest - it's often hard to tell if George...