WHEN a North Ossetian architect named Vitaly Kaloyev lost his wife and two children in a mid-air collision between their airliner and a cargo aircraft over Germany two years ago he seemed a finished man. Abandoning his career he grew a beard, became a recluse, and was seen mourning in all weather at his family’s graves in the regional capital Vladikavkaz. But Kaloyev, 48, was not quite finished.

Last February he flew to Zurich, checked into an airport hotel, then made his way to a nearby address: the home of a Danish air traffic controller named Peter Nielsen who was on duty at the time of the collision. The two had a brief exchange in the front garden — Kaloyev had taken the trouble to learn rudimentary German. Then he pulled out a knife and stabbed Mr Nielsen to death. “We in the Caucasus have our own way of speaking with scum,” Kaloyev told Mr Nielsen’s colleagues.

After last week’s bloodbath in Beslan there are now hundreds of potential Kaloyevs in North Ossetia. The extraordinary sight of armed civilians rushing into the burning school alongside — and often obstructing — Russian commandos illustrates this. So too do several instances of mob justice outside the school against men suspected of being terrorists.

“We are a peaceful people, but when others shed the blood of our children, we must take revenge. It is the same in all of the Caucasus,” said Kazmat Bazagov, 42, after the raid.

The Caucasus is one of the most ethnically diverse and volatile areas in the world, and a region where tradition and culture often demand that the killing of kin be avenged. In the north, dozens of tiny mountain nations speaking separate languages were thrown together in autonomous entities created by Stalin in the 1930s with an eye to divide and rule.

The fear in the wake of the Beslan massacre is that with Russia already bogged down in Chechnya, a widening cycle of revenge could seriously destabilise the region, as President Putin said.

“Those who sent these bandits to carry out this horrible crime aimed to set our peoples against one another, to frighten Russian citizens, to unleash a bloody internal conflict in the North Caucasus,” he said at the weekend.

Certainly the hostage-takers’ choice of North Ossetia was not by chance.

As the only Christians among the mountain tribes on the north face of the Caucasus, the Ossetians have long been Moscow’s key ally. Their republic straddles the two main mountain passes and the area hosts a huge Russian military presence. Vladi-kavkaz means “Ruler of the Caucasus”.

Fighting and terrorism have also spread on several occasions to Dagestan. This summer there was a little-reported clash between police and insurgents as far away as Kabardino-Balkaria, another piece of the Caucasus jigsaw.

In June, rebels attacked security forces in Ingushetia, killing about 90. Their motivation was simple: revenge for a series of brutal abductions the authorities are alleged to have carried out in order to destroy support in Ingushetia for the Chechen rebels.

Now it appears that Ingush were also among the hostage-takers in Beslan. One of their demands — in addition to a Russian withdrawal from Chechnya — was the liberation of guerrillas captured in June and being held in Vladikavkaz.

This will especially infuriate North Ossetians, who already mistrust the Ingush. A territorial dispute led to a brief conflict 12 years ago, ending with the killing of thousands of Ingush from North Ossetia. To this day many Ingush remain refugees.

The Chechen war itself is in part sustained by desire to avenge almost a decade of bombing, executions and “disappearances” at the hands of Russian troops. The presence among the hostage-takers in Beslan of “black widows” — desperate, possibly brainwashed wives and sisters of slain Chechen men — surprised no one.

The Russians are part of the vicious circle. Hatred of Caucasians in general and Chechens in particular is widespread, as anyone in Moscow with dark, southern features soon finds.

Now, it may be the turn of North Ossetians. “We will mourn first,” said Ruslan Khadikov, 33, in Beslan. “Then we will find out who has done this and we will kill them all.”

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