MUSLIM HATE FOR RUSSIA!
Published: 5/26/2006
PARIS - A timeline of the conflict in Chechnya and inter-linked violence:
1994: Russia sends troops into the predominantly Muslim republic, where the local leadership has declared independence.
1996: After fighting which kills an estimated 50,000 people and leaves Chechnya's cities in ruins, Russia reaches an agreement with the rebels and pulls its troops out, leaving the province with de facto independence.
1999: Chechen separatists launch a series of bloody attacks in the neighbouring province of Dagestan. Some 300 people die in bombings in Moscow and other cities that the authorities blame on Chechen separatists. Independent analysts suspect that security forces may have had a hand in at least some of the bombings.
The government of Vladimir Putin -- prime minister at the time -- launches an assault on Chechnya by air and land forces. The most intense fighting ends in March 2000.
2001: Human Rights Watch estimates the number of displaced persons in Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia to be 430,000.
2002: Amid continuing violence in the republic, rebels take hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theatre. When security forces use gas to storm the building, 130 civilians and 41 Chechen guerrillas are killed.
2003-4: The violence brings an increasing number of suicide bombings, both inside Chechnya and in other parts of Russia.
In September 2004, armed Chechen separatists take some 1,200 children, teachers and parents hostage at a school in Beslan, in the Caucasian republic of North Ossetia. When security forces storm the building two days later 331 civilians and 31 rebels are killed. More than half the dead are children.
Russian forces in Chechnya continue to come under almost daily attack to the present time.
There are no reliable figures for the numbers killed in the fighting. According to official figures, Russia has lost some 10,000 troops in all. Human rights experts estimate the number of civilians killed to be as high as 100,000. Several thousand people have disappeared without trace.