Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,

Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya but were set back by Chechen g

guerrilla warfare

At the time of writing of this review of Matthew Evangelista's clearly written book on the wars between Russia and Chechnya, there are reports of several people being killed in an explosion on a commuter train in south Russia, close to Chechnya.

The Russian authorities immediately blamed "Chechen terrorists.

The collapse of Communism in Eurasia has led to many events that few analysts in the West could have predicted during the Cold War. One of the most improbable of these events was the stunning military victory of the tiny autonomous republic of Chechnya in the 1994-1996 war for independence against the Russian Federation.

While the Chechens can officially claim to be victors in the first Russo-Chechen war of the 1990s, there was in actuality no winner in this bloody conflict. Scores of Chechen villages were destroyed, the Chechen capital of Grozny was bombed to rubble in the heaviest bombardment in Europe since the bombing of Dresden, tens of thousands of Chechens and Russians living in Chechnya lost their lives, hundreds of thousands more were made refugees, and the economy of the independent statelet of Ichkeria, as Chechnya is now known, lies in utter ruin.

Rather than accepting autonomy within the Russian Federation, as the Republic of Tatarstan has, for example, the Chechen people rallied behind such leaders as Dzhokhar Dudaev, Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basaev, and chose to fight the might of transcontinental Russia in a bitter struggle for total freedom. The heavy cost of this independence for the Chechen people has been incalculable in socioeconomic terms.

The collapse of Communism in Eurasia has led to many events that few analysts in the West could have predicted during the Cold War. One of the most improbable of these events was the stunning military victory of the tiny autonomous republic of Chechnya in the 1994-1996 war for independence against the Russian Federation.

been wars there within the Republic of Georgia and between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. There, too, occurred the RussianChechen conflict in 1994-96, which resumed in 1999 when forces from Chechnya, probably not controlled by the national leadership of the republic, attacked neighboring Dagestan.

been wars there within the Republic of Georgia and between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

There, too, occurred the RussianChechen conflict in 1994-96, which resumed in 1999 when forces from Chechnya, probably not controlled by the national leadership of the republic, attacked neighboring Dagestan.

At a time when the US is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its Merida Initiative, supplying Mexico with money to fight the drug cartels, it seems contradictory to be simultaneously providing the cartels with a constant supply of desperate ex-convicts with nowhere to go and no legitimate options for survival.

The Sinaloa Cartel (Pacific Cartel, Guzmán-Loera Cartel) (Spanish: Cártel de Sinaloa) is the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico[2] and considered by the United States Intelligence Community as "the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world."

Guzmán-Loera

Organization and the Pacific Cartel

IV. Mexico's Drug War Mexico continued its war on drug trafficking that Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched against drug cartels in 2006.

President Calderón announced that his administration would reform civilian law enforcement and the courts, and that "the Mexican army would continue to lead the fight until local and state police forces are free of corruption."20

These are but a handful of die murders reported in Mexico's drug wars. The level of violence attributable to die war on drugs and die organized criminal activity that precipitated it cannot, however, be measured simply by counting corpses. Kidnappings, carjackings, extortion, and other forms of crime and aggression infect the quality of daily life.

"It's looking more and more like Colombia looked twenty years ago," she said, "where the narco-traffickers control certain parts of the country."

Mexico doesn't even have a viable proclaimed guerrilla force aiming to topple the government. Instead, Mexico has labyrinthine drug gangs murderously fighting it out against each other-while they extort, intimidate, massacre, and conduct firefights with the government.

There is no law there," he warned. "They are the law."