MOSCOW (Reuters) – A group of Russian Islamist militants have claimed responsibility for the killing of the mayor of a city in the turbulent North Caucasus region, an Internet site with rebel links reported on Thursday.
“The execution of the enemy of Allah was carried out by the amir of Kataib al-Khoul,” a statement posted on the www.kavkazcenter.com Internet site.

GENEVA (AP) — Mediators succeeded Wednesday in getting direct talks going between Russia and Georgia, pressing the two neighbors to resolve security and refugee issues from their August war in the troubled Caucasus.
In all, eight parties met behind closed doors at the U.N.’s European headquarters in Geneva for the one-day talks and agreed to meet again next month, EU representative Pierre Morel said.

An independent report on the war between Russia and Georgia in August, is calling for an investigation into the conduct of all parties during the hostilities. The London-based human rights organization, Amnesty International, says it is concerned serious rights violations took place at the time.
Amnesty says all sides in the August conflict may have committed abuses. In its new report, Amnesty says Georgian and Russian forces and militia fighters in the breakaway South Ossetia region should be investigated for war crimes during the conflict.

The secretary-general of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolai Bordyuzha, recently announced the planned formation of an international force in Central Asia that “should be prepared to repel any threat.”
On November 9, after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted an agreement on the expected 5,000-strong force to the State Duma for approval, Bordyuzha said that the force is to be formed immediately upon the agreement’s ratification by all participating states.

For Giorgi Kapanadze, the fighting in South Ossetia began days before the world even noticed that a war was going on.
Pro-Moscow separatist forces had been shelling his hometown of Avnevi, an ethnic-Georgian village inside the breakaway region, pretty much nonstop since the beginning of August until Georgian troops entered the enclave around midnight on August 7-8.

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) – Russia started developing tactical laser weapons before the United States and has several prototypes of high-precision combat chemical lasers in its arsenal, a defense industry source said on Tuesday.
The Boeing Company said recently it had test-fired a high-energy chemical laser fitted aboard a C-130H aircraft for the first time. The successful ground tests, “a key milestone for the Advanced Tactical Laser Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program,” took place on May 13 at the Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.

Russia has sold 12 MiG-29 fighter jets to Sudan, the Sudanese defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, said during a visit to Moscow on Friday, according to Russian news agencies.

European and Russian leaders sought common ground on Friday on tackling the global financial crisis despite divisions over Georgia and European concerns about security and energy supplies from Russia.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, heading the EU side at a one-day summit in the French resort of Nice, and Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev will then fly directly to Washington to join the G20 meeting of top economies on the crisis.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy says he is concerned about Russia’s threat to deploy missiles near Poland and wants a summit on European security.
“We really must move forward… to remove sources of friction,” Mr Sarkozy said at a joint news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

PEREVI, Georgia: Dozens of Georgians crowded onto a rickety bus Monday, clambering over one another to flee this remote mountain village, which has become a flash point of mounting tensions on the boundary of South Ossetia.
They left behind a nearly deserted village, whose remaining residents are afraid to come out onto the streets for fear of attracting the attention of Ossetian soldiers patrolling the area. Russian troops continued to withdraw from the main checkpoint at the western edge of Perevi, leaving Ossetians in charge of a tense population.