September 13, 1999. Copyright 1999. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

DAGESTAN BACKGROUNDER
LONDON, September 13, Graphic News: DAGESTAN: About 31,000 sq miles (50,000 sq km) Ð roughly the size of Scotland, Austria or the state of Maine. The ÒLand of MountainsÓ is located in the northeastern region of the Caucasus mountain range and has a coastline on the oil-rich Caspian Sea. In the south it borders the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia.
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POPULATION: Composed of two million people with some 34 different nationalities, including Lezgins, Kumyks, Chechens, Ingush, Avars, Armenians, Kalmyks, Kabardians, Azeris and Jews.
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ECONOMY: RussiaÕs decade-long economic problems have sapped MoscowÕs authority and helped boost the influence of radical Islam. Oil and electricity production are the backbone of the economy. Dagestan controls some 70% of RussiaÕs shoreline on the oil-producing Caspian Sea and contains RussiaÕs only all-weather Caspian port, Makhachkala, as well as crucial pipelines from Azerbaijan to Russia.
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HISTORY: Russia first annexes the Caspian Sea regions of Dagestan in 1722, under Peter the Great, but mountain guerrillas resist Russian encroachment for a further century and a half.
In the mid-19th century, the legendary Imam Shamil uses Islam to build the mountain tribes into a powerful fighting force and tries to create an Islamic state. His lieutenants are mullahs or Muslim clergy. But outgunned and outnumbered by the tsarÕs forces, Shamil eventually has to concede defeat.
The 1917 Russian revolution brings the Communists to power but Islam and the traditional clan system remain strong in the North Caucasus despite persecution by the atheistic Moscow government.
Ethnic resentment mounts during World War II when Josef Stalin deports over 1.5 million people, mostly Muslims and Chechens, from their homes to Central Asia for ÒcollaborationÓ with German Nazi troops. Tens of thousands die.
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RECENT EVENTS: In 1994 President Boris Yeltsin sends troops to neighbouring Chechnya to crush the independence movement. Tens of thousands, mostly civilians, die in the ensuing 20-month war which ends in a humiliating defeat for Russian forces.
Three years after the ceasefire, Chechnya remains dogged by kidnappings, shootings and other violent crime. Moscow Ð which no longer exerts any control over Chechnya Ð accuses Chechen warlords of giving armed support to radical Islamists to overthrow the pro-Moscow Dagestan administration of Magomedali Magomedov.
July 1999: Russian troops clash increasingly fiercely with Chechen fighters near ChechnyaÕs border with Dagestan. Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin orders the armed forces to Ònormalise the situation.Ó
Aug 9: Yeltsin sacks Stepashin and nominates security chief Vladimir Putin as Russian prime minister.
Prime Minister Putin undertakes to quash the rebellion within a week. 
Allowing independence is seen as a sign of weakness in Moscow, important as parliamentary and presidential elections approach. Independence could also lead to the break-up of Russia itself, which comprises of scores of different ethnicities.
Shamil Basayev, the Chechen warlord who leads Dagestan rebels, calls for a union of Chechnya and Dagestan and says he wants to drive Russia from the region. The rebels are a combination of conservative Islamic and anti-Russian fighters. For months they have been crossing into Dagestan from Chechnya to stage attacks, kidnappings and seize villages. The Chechen government deny supporting the rebels.
August 29: Russian forces in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala mount fierce attacks on rebels in Novolaksk region of Dagestan.
Aug 31: A bomb explodes in a Moscow shopping centre, injuring 40 people. Officials do not rule out a link with the fighting in the North Caucasus.
Sep 4 - A block of military apartments in Buinaksk, a Dagestan town near which Russian troops are fighting to clear villages of rebels, is destroyed by a bomb, killing at least 17.
Sep 5 - Hundreds of gunmen cross into Dagestan from Chechnya in an apparent new assault by Chechen-led guerrillas.
Sep 8: Russia's Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo briefs the head of AmericaÕs FBI, Louis Freeh, on the suspected involvement of Islamic radical Osama bin Laden in Dagestan. It is alleged that bin Laden has given $25 million to Chechen leaders to mount attacks against Moscow. Bin Laden, a Saudi-born millionaire, is the FBIÕs chief suspect in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Sep 9: Explosion razes apartment block in southeast Moscow, killing 94 people.
Sep 13: At least 43 people are killed in a blast which tears through an apartment block on Kashirskoye highway in southern Moscow. Russian officials linked the blasts to BasayevÕs Islamic militants, but Basayev denies involvement.
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