Word: moscow
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...third day of the attack, at least 330 people were killed, more than half of them children. The attack was said to have altered the whole arc of not only the horrific conflict in nearby Chechnya but also the presidency of Vladimir Putin. Beslan was supposed to have given Moscow resolve. North Ossetia - indeed, the whole of the North Caucasus, between the Black Sea to the west and the Caspian Sea to the east - was supposed to be tranquil, harmonious, subdued. But that's not what has happened...
...Republic (pop. 1.1 million) ever since, and by 2008, his allies in the Kremlin were declaring victory. All the violence - the virtual razing of the capital, Grozny; the ferocious attacks by rebels - was supposed to be over. The horrible seige at Beslan and, later, the bloody assaults on a Moscow theater and a crowded underpass and the Chechen war exported into the rest of Russia were supposed to be things of the past. (See pictures of Chechnya today...
Alexey Malashenko, a North Caucasus specialist at the Carnegie Moscow Center, portrayed the violence in the region as part of a nearly 20-year intermittent struggle inaugurated by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Malashenko and Gregory Shvedov, the editor-in-chief of Caucasian Knot, an Internet news site that has drawn unwanted attention from authorities, attributed the bloodshed to Islamic extremism and corrupt government officials in Grozny, the Chechen capital; Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital; and Magas, the Ingushetian capital. "There is no access to any freedoms, political and civil freedoms, including religious freedoms, which is fueling the situation," Shvedov...
...especially if it were destined for the Middle East. Chief among them is Israel. In recent years, the Israeli government has consistently raised alarms about Russia's plans to sell MiG-31 fighter planes to Syria and its construction of a nuclear-power station in southwestern Iran. Negotiations with Moscow have been tough on these issues and relations often icy, as the Israeli President pointed out during his visit to Russia on Aug. 18, just as the mysteries behind the Arctic Sea's disappearance began to unfold. (Read "Medvedev and Obama: Sunshine in Moscow...
...most likely explanation is that the Israelis intercepted this cargo, which had been meant for Syria or Iran," says Yulya Latynina, a prominent political commentator and radio host on Echo of Moscow, a station owned by state-controlled gas giant Gazprom. "They will now use the incident as a bargaining chip with Russia over weapons sales in the region, while allowing Russia to save face by taking its empty ship back home." When contacted by TIME, both the Israeli Prime Minister's office and Mossad, Israel's secret service, declined to comment. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel...