Word: caucasus
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...Munayev, a Chechen military commander who fought against the Russians during the two Chechen wars of the 1990s, which killed tens of thousands of people. Since then, the group has chosen nonviolent resistance from abroad as a way of achieving its goal of winning independence for the Caucasus. But they still maintain contacts with the leaders of the violent insurgency at home, including the fighters loyal to the Chechen warlord Doku Umarov...
...toward the Russian government. Judging by history, the Kremlin may find it hard to show restraint when accused of cowardice and impotence by its own people, and it will likely react as it often has in cases like this: by renewing its crackdown on insurgents in the North Caucasus, a predominantly Muslim hub for domestic terrorism. But in an interview with TIME, the leading lady of the Caucasus resistance in exile warned that this will only fuel the insurgency there, dragging Russia deeper into a decades-old conflict in its most rebellious region...
Rusudan Giorgberidze, vice chairwoman of the Free Caucasus resistance movement, said she has little doubt that the Russian government intends to "tighten the screws" on the North Caucasus after top security officials blamed Monday's attacks on Islamist rebels from the region. (So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.) But that move, she added, will likely only spur a cycle of retaliation. "In the face of a regime that rules by increasingly persistent clampdowns and raids, a person who tries to defend himself does not think of himself as an insurgent. Excuse me, but that is simply...
Giorgberidze's perspective as a former resistance fighter and a woman has special relevance in the wake of Monday's attacks, which were carried out by two female suicide bombers who were linked in the Russian media to the notorious "black widows" of the North Caucasus. These are the women who have carried out a string of suicide bombings in Russia in recent years, most notably in 2004, when they struck two passenger planes taking off from Moscow, killing 89 people. They also took part in the Moscow theater siege of 2002 that claimed more than 100 lives. Their motivation...
...Whether the attack was part of the Islamic insurgency in the Caucasus or not, one thing is clear: terrorist groups are now capable of carrying out dramatic attacks in the heart of the capital. Putin and Medvedev will now face public pressure to wipe out the rebel groups for good, and it may be hard for them to resist the temptation to boost their approval ratings by using the harshest means available...