The Federal Security Service department announced today that Russian troops had killed Chechen warlord Khizir Khachukayev in the Grozny rural district.  Khachukayev was a "Brigadier General" in the Akhmadov brothers' group, which was close to Khattab (the Jordanian field commander). He, along with 15 other rebels, was killed in a special raid in the village of Starye Atagi, part of three large-scale Russian special operations carried out this past week.

Raids on the villages of Chechen-Aul, Starye Atagi, Shali and Tsotsin-Yurt resulted in the elimination of 29 rebels, three base camps, over 30 dug-outs or arms and ammo caches. During the course of the operations, federal troops confiscated 100 small arms, 51 grenade launchers, over 90,000 small-arms cartridges and 35kg of explosives, as well as almost 300 artillery and mortar shells (which are used to manufacture Command Detonated Mines, the Chechen rebels' favorite weapon). - Adam Geibel

The government said it expects the nuclear power plant Russian firms are helping build in Iran will be operational in September, 2003. There is some fear that Israeli aircraft will bomb the plant, like it did an Iraqi plant in 1982, to prevent it going on line and producing material for nuclear weapons.