Duisi is a town that gains proportionally more media attention than most isolated poor mountain villages in the Caucasus. The influx of refugees from the North, sometimes radicalized, has created some complicated ethno-religious realities for an otherwise quiet mountain region. While the first Chechen War in the 1990s was predicated on independence, autonomy, and recognition of Chechen nationalism, the second conflict took on a more religious tone, with several radical Sunni Islamic groups like the Caucasus Emirate at the forefront of paradigm-shaking attacks, like the takeover of a Moscow theater in 2002, and most prominently, the Beslan School massacre in 2004.
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