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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13273-2003Dec18.html
In Russia, Terrorism Becomes a Fact of Life
(Washington Post) - Each day Moscow police receive 15 to 75 calls from panicked residents reporting possible terrorist threats. Over the past 14 months, about 470 people have died in terrorist attacks in Moscow, Chechnya, and other parts of southern Russia. The Russian government blames nearly all of the violence on Chechen separatists and insists they have been aided by Arab terrorist groups tied to al-Qaeda. Many stores and restaurants in central Moscow post guards at the door, a habit from the mid-1990s when mafia hits were more common. Today the guards are trained to look out for female suicide bombers - "black widows," the term the tabloid press uses in warning that a phalanx of them is on the way to the capital.