Chechen rebels have been fighting Russian forces since 1994, but the armed conflict has now largely subsided.

Chechnya, on Russia's southern fringes, has its own cultural, linguistic and ethnic identity. Most people in the surrounding North Caucasus region are Muslim in contrast to traditionally Orthodox Russians.

Chechens claimed independence in 1991, and at first a fragile Russian government turned a blind eye to the rebellion.

But in 1994 then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin sent in troops to suppress the uprising. Russian forces, though, suffered surprising losses and withdrew in 1996.

Aslan Maskhadov, who led the rebels during the 1994-96 war, was elected president of a de facto independent Chechnya in 1997. The ceasefire granted the region substantial autonomy.

Hardline Chechen rebels defied Maskhadov's leadership and launched cross-border attacks on neighbouring Dagestan to the east, sparking a Russian retaliation. It was Vladimir Putin, then Russian prime minister, who launched a second war in 1999.

Human rights organisation Memorial estimates the number of killed or missing civilians at up to 50,000 for the first Chechen war and up to 25,000 for the second and its aftermath.

According to official figures, around 10,000 servicemen were killed in both wars, but experts and rights campaigners say the toll is much higher.

Memorial, for example, estimates about 15,000 Russian soldiers died in total.

At the height of the second Chechen war in early 2000, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said fighting and abuses by security forces and Chechen rebels had forced 300,000 people to flee their homes.

As the war cooled, authorities put heavy pressure on the displaced to return and in 2004 closed camps in the neighbouring Russian region of Ingushetia which housed most of the refugees.

Most did return but the U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said in early 2009 there were still 55,000 displaced in Chechnya, most of them living in private accommodation.

UNHCR also said there are some 13,000 displaced people in Ingushetia and 3,500 in Dagestan.

Unemployment is rampant in Chechnya, but the capital, Grozny, has been rebuilt after 85 percent of it was damaged or destroyed during major offensives at the end of 1994 and again in 1999-2000.

Small businesses are opening up, the civilian airport has re-opened and the stadium has been refurbished.

However, landmines laid by both Chechen rebels and pro-Russian forces are still a danger to civilians.

Sporadic fighting continues in the mountains and the south of Chechnya. But Russia has scaled down its presence, and left the local pro-Moscow government to stabilise the region.

Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov has maintained a tough policy towards the rebels.

The stocky and bearded Kadyrov, who keeps tiger cubs for pets, commands the loyalty of thousands of troops who have been rearmed and retrained by Russia. Human rights groups accuse him of abuses and quashing freedom, accusations he has always ignored.

Russia says several hundred separatist combatants are still fighting, while independent analysts say there are up to 2,000.

Bomb attacks in major Russian cities by extremists and rebels' widows have dried up, handing the Kremlin a major PR success. But violence has increased in Chechnya's neighbours, Dagestan and Ingushetia.

The 1999 election of Vladimir Putin as Russian president was primarily based on his promise to crack down on the perpetrators of bomb attacks in 1999 that killed about 300 Russians, which Moscow blames on Chechens.

In September 2004, Chechen rebels took a school in Beslan in southern Russia hostage. More than 320 people died in the siege, more than half of them children.

Russian special forces killed the alleged mastermind of the atrocity, warlord Shamil Basayev, in July 2006.

Civilians in Chechnya no longer live in fear of being caught in crossfire, but analysts say Kadyrov's security guards preside over a climate of intimidation.

Human Rights Watch says extra-judicial executions, forced disappearances and torture still take place, and have spread to other regions of North Caucasus. Kadyrov denies any involvement in this violence and says he will hunt down those responsible.

In July 2009, Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, was found dead in Ingushetia with two gunshot wounds to her head. She had been working in Chechnya, collecting data on human rights abuses.

Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta says the murder of one of its journalists, Anna Politkovskaya, in Moscow in October 2006, was linked to Kadyrov. He denies any involvement. Politkovskaya won international recognition for her work on Chechnya, exposing human rights abuses.

Many non-governmental organisations say it is a repressive climate for international and domestic civil society, and getting worse.

Although international aid staff are returning to Chechnya, some relief agencies are based instead in Vladikavkaz, capital of neighbouring North Ossetia.

During Chechnya's de facto 1996-99 independence, some Chechen nationalists favoured introducing Islamic sharia law and others advocated an independent secular state.

The Chechen government's adoption of some elements of Islamic law alienated many former allies. The head of its sharia law court was Abdul-Khalim Saduleyev, who led the separatist movement for a year until he was killed in June 2006. Saduleyev was succeeded by warlord Doku Umarov.

Despite contravening Russia's constitution, the pro-Moscow Chechens currently in power have brought in elements of religious law, enforcing headscarves for women and cracking down on alcohol and gambling. Kadyrov also promotes polygamy.

The Chechen struggle has gained some support from Muslim sympathisers around the world and Russian special forces regularly say they have killed Arab Islamists fighting in Chechnya.

Security analysts say improved security in Chechnya has pushed violence into Ingushetia and Dagestan, where bombings and shootouts have become more frequent.

Chechens have family, cultural and religious ties with Ingushetia, immediately to the west. Dagestan, to the east, lies on the Caspian Sea and is also a predominantly Muslim republic.

Chechnya and Ingushetia were united in one region in Soviet times, but Ingushetia decided to break with Chechnya in 1992, partly to avoid direct confrontation with Moscow as Chechnya wanted to push for independence.

Ingushetia - a poor, mainly Muslim republic of about 400,000 people - was racked by bomb attacks and murders in 2008 as federal forces and rebels fought for control.

There were street protests in the capital, Nazran, after the August 2008 death in police custody of opposition leader Magomed Yevloyev - owner of www.ingushetiya.ru, an opposition website which both the Ingush president and Russian courts had tried to ban.

Towards the end of 2008 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev replaced the deeply unpopular Murat Zyazikov as head of Ingushetia with the former paratroop commander Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. Yekurov promised but failed to stem the growth of violence. In June a suicide bomber in a car hit his convoy as he drove to work. Yevkurov survived the murder attempt but was seriously hurt.

Russian forces have been fighting rebels hiding in the mountains of Dagestan. Analysts say poverty here is pushing young Muslims towards radical Islam, which the government blames for the growth in violence. In 2009 a gunman killed the region's interior minister.

Electricity and heating services often fail in Makhachkala, Dagestan's sprawling capital.

Chechens can trace their presence in their land for 6,000 years, and they have been rebelling for centuries - against Cossack settlers in the 16th century, and then against the Tsarist Empire in the 19th century.

In 1944, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin accused the Chechens and their Ingush neighbours of siding with Nazi Germany during World War Two - although thousands of them had fought with the Red Army - and deported half a million of them to Siberia and Central Asia.

Many died as a result of the deportations, called Operation Lentil because the start of the Russian word for lentil - chechevitsa - identified who its principal targets were. Survivors weren't allowed back until 1956.

Chechnya and its near neighbours are much poorer than the rest of Russia. Wages are lower, and unemployment and infant mortality are significantly higher.