[link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1256-2004Sep6?language=printer|Washington Post]:

In sorting through the origins of the hostage crisis, Russian officials said they had concluded that the strike against a target outside Chechnya, the scene of nearly 10 years of intermittent fighting, was part of a broader strategy to reignite the entire North Caucasus, a historically volatile region of mixed ethnic and religious groups. While the government has admitted to lying about the scope of the hostage crisis at first, its analysis about the goals and Chechen sponsorship coincides with that of independent specialists.

[...]

"It appears to be a deliberate provocation to reignite the conflict between Ingushetia and North Ossetia, to extend the range of the chaos," said Fiona Hill, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "It's very easy to stir up the region if you want to, and somebody wants to. This is a wake-up call. The whole of the Caucasus is going to go up at this rate."

Putin raised the specter of the region breaking apart from Moscow during a meeting with Hill and other visiting Westerners late Monday. "There's a Yugoslavia variant here," he said, according to notes taken by Eileen O'Connor, a participant. "It would be difficult to imagine the consequences for the rest of the world. Bear in mind Russia is a nuclear power."


Cheers,
Scott.