Russia's Systematic Hunt for Chechen Commanders

Russia has begun a systematic effort to hunt down Chechen and foreign militant commanders. By organizing its operations instead of relying on irregular efforts as in the past, Moscow aims to weaken the insurgency — making it headless, disorganized and disoriented — and to pre-empt terrorist strikes against Russia. Moscow is more than capable of carrying out the campaign and likely will succeed in capturing or killing some enemy commanders, but will have only limited success in pre-empting terrorist attacks.