International

Dagustan, a powder gag in the North Caucasus

The terrorist attacks that this Sunday claimed about twenty deaths in Dagestan, the most explosive republic in the Russian North Caucasus, once again put Russia’s security forces in strain, embraced in a exhausting military campaign in Ukraine.

And the recent history of Dagestan, a Muslim republic bathed by the Caspian and bordering Georgia and Azerbaijan, is dotted with terrorist actions, some of great magnitude such as the incursion led by the Chechen Shamil Basayev, which broke out the second war in Chechnya (1999-2009).

More than 96 percent of the inhabitants of Dagestan, a name that means “land of mountains”, are Muslims.

With just over 50,000 square kilometers and 3.2 million inhabitants, it is the most populous republic in the North Caucasus and its population is made up of a multitude of ethnic groups, as evidenced by its 15 official languages, including Russian.

The neighborhood with Chechnya, which in 1991 proclaimed its independence from Russia, granted Dagestan a key role in the two wars fought in the neighboring region.

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Precisely in the Daguestani city of Jasaviurt, bordering Chechnya, Russia signed in 1996 the ceasefire agreement with the Chechen independence fighters, which the following year materialized in a peace treaty.

Dagestan was also the territory chosen by Basayev in 1999 to launch an armed incursion and proclaim, with the support of the Islamic State, the creation of a caliphate in the Caucasus.

Although in Chechnia, where Russia after almost ten years of war managed to impose its order, Islamist attacks were considerably reduced, the same has not happened in Dagestan.

On May 3, 2012, thirteen people died and more than 120 were injured in a double car bomb attack on a police post in Majachkalá, the Republican capital.

Sunday’s attacks against two Orthodox churches and two synagogues were not the first perpetrated against temples in Dagestan: on February 18, 2018, a man armed with a knife and a hunting shotgun killed five women in an Orthodox church in the city of Kiszliar, an attack claimed by the Islamic State.

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In addition, in October 2023, a mob broke into the airport of the Dagestan capital and surrounded a hotel in search of Israeli citizens in protest against the bombing of the Gaza Strip

International

Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.

“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.

Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.

International

Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.

Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.

However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.

International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.

“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.

The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.

His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”