Timeline: Events in Chechnya over the last year

LONDON - Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has been killed by Russian troops fighting to quell a long rebellion in the mainly Muslim Caucasus region, the Russian army announced on Tuesday.

Here is a short chronology of Chechnya since the Moscow-backed Chechen president was assassinated:

May 9, 2004 - A bomb blast at a stadium in the Chechen capital, Grozny, kills the Moscow-backed Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov and five others. Russian and Chechen officials blamed rebels for the assassination. But Maskhadov, in an interview with the rebel news agency Chechenpress, denied any involvement.

May 11 - Russian president Putin makes a rare lightning visit to Chechnya to honour murdered leader Kadyrov and orders more than 1000 extra forces to the province.

July 6 - Maskhadov says he has enough men and firepower to fight Russian forces for another 20 years, and issues a death threat to the region's next president.

July 13 - Eighteen members of a pro-Moscow security force are killed in an overnight battle with separatist rebels outside the village of Avtury, in Chechnya's southern mountains.

Aug 21 - Gunmen attack a police station and voting centres in war-torn Chechnya, killing at least 11 people.

Aug 22 - President Putin makes a rare visit to Chechnya, a week before elections for a successor to assassinated president Kadyrov.

Sept 1 - At least 326 hostages -- half of them children -- die in a chaotic storming of School No 1 in Beslan, southern Russia, after it was seized by rebels demanding Chechen independence.

Russia blames Maskhadov and another Chechen separatist leader, Shamil Basayev. But Maskhadov, a relative moderate, denies involvement in the hostage-taking.

Oct 5 - Alu Alkhanov, Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader, is sworn in as president of the region and acknowledges immediately he is a prime target for assassination.

Nov 8 - Russian troops kill at least 22 rebels in Chechnya's turbulent Vedensky region including Emir Suleiman, a man linked to the assassination of Chechnya's president.

Feb 2, 2005 - Maskhadov said to have ordered all Chechen fighters to observe a ceasefire in their separatist war against Russian troops in February. Chechnya's government dismissed the ceasefire declaration the next day.

Feb 18 - Yunadi Turchayev is killed by pro-Russian Chechen forces. Turchayev led rebels in central Chechnya and in the capital Grozny for at least a year.

Feb 22 - Chechen rebels hail a unilateral truce ending at midnight as showing their strength and unity, but a Kremlin aide again rejects their appeal for peace talks.

March 8 - Russian army announces Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has been killed by its troops. Russian television shows what it says is Maskhadov's body.

- REUTERS