The killing by Chechen Islamists of several hundred hostages, mainly children, in the southern Russian town of Beslan should be a defining moment in the War on Terror.

* The killing by Chechen Islamists of several hundred hostages, mainly children, in the southern Russian town of Beslan should be a defining moment in the War on Terror. President Vladimir Putin has to explain how this atrocity happened, and what he proposes to do to ensure future security. Far from it, on the pretext that the unity of Russia is under threat he has made a grab to extend his personal power. At present Russia's 89 regions have governors, elected locally and therefore acting as some sort of check on the ruler in the Kremlin. Putin will now be appointing them. More than that, he is completely rigging the Duma, already an imperfectly democratic institution. In the future, this parliament will consist only of members appointed by party lists, not elected for individual districts, as half of them are now. Nobody will be in a position to challenge the monopoly of power Putin has been accumulating for himself and his United Russia party. In the past 18 months he has been bringing the media and big business under control. Former president Boris Yeltsin selected Putin as his successor, and he approves these further centralizing political moves. Beleaguered as they are, the independent or oppositionist members of the Duma complain, but they are helpless, and ordinary Russians appear apathetic. This contemporary version of the old Soviet party-state is not going to do anyone any good, and it is likely to make the War on Terror that much more difficult to win.