By empty (11/29/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In an interview published in the 22 November issue of \"Yezhenedelnyi zhurnal,\" Ruslan Khasbulatov said that the decision to send Russian troops into Chechnya in late 1994 was taken partly to distract public attention from growing economic problems, and partly because then Russian President Boris Yeltsin feared that Khasbulatov himself -- one of the leaders of the October 1993 confrontation between Yeltsin and the Duma -- might come to power in Chechnya in the event that his campaign to oust Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev peacefully was successful. Khasbulatov claimed that hundreds of thousands of Chechens supported that ill-fated campaign. As for the second Chechen war, Khasbulatov argued that it could have ended in 2000-2001 if the Russian military had apprehended the leaders of the Chechen resistance, but that Chief of Army General Staff Anatolii Kvashnin did all in his power to prolong the conflict while constantly affirming that it was \"manageable\" and \"localized.

By empty (11/29/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The Kavkaz-Center Chechen separatist website began operating again on Monday and the website\'s administrators claim they are working on Lithuanian territory. \"The work continued after the Lithuanian telecom unblocked the site\'s address after getting the Vilnius Second District Court\'s official decision to remove all restrictions on the international Chechen Agency on Lithuania\'s territory,\" says a statement from the site\'s administration. (Interfax).

By empty (11/29/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Some 900 freight cars bound for Georgia have been halted in Azerbaijan, and Georgian Railways Commercial Director Ramaz Giorgadze was scheduled to travel to Baku on 29 November to discuss the issue with Azerbaijani officials. Although no official explanation has been given for the delay, Caucasus Press said that some Azerbaijani functionaries have admitted that security personnel are checking the cargoes on suspicion that they are destined for Armenia. But Georgian Railways Director General David Onoprishvili said the cargo is destined not for Armenia but the Georgian Black Sea ports of Poti and Batumi.