Attacks in Russia's Ingushetia province lead some commentators there to worry that the conflict in Chechnya is spreading. But there is also debate over who the culprits really are.
Outside Russia, there is criticism for the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin's policy in the region, and the conviction of child killer Marc Dutroux leaves one Swiss paper unsatisfied.
Ingushetia
The Ingushetia attacks, which left at least 57 dead, are viewed with alarm by more than one Russian commentator.
"This is not a terrorist act", says Rossiyskaya Gazeta . "This is not a sortie of a handful of fanatics. This is something else."
The paper notes that the attackers' targets were carefully studied and that the operation was carried out "impeccably".
"So what is it - the war moving on to a new phase?" the paper asks. "It would be very bad if it spills over to the territory of Ingushetia."
Novyye Izvestiya
Novyye Izvestiya also views the events with trepidation, observing that torture, killings, kidnappings and raids have "long since become a usual thing for local residents".
"The situation in the republic has escalated to the extent that any crude interference could send Ingushetia down 'the path of Chechnya'," the paper says.
It warns the authorities they "cannot continue pretending that everything is calm in the Caucasus".
"Events in Ingushetia convincingly demonstrated that federal troops still do not control the situation in the region, no matter what we are being shown on TV," the paper concludes.
Culprits
There is also some debate over the identity of the attackers. Though President Putin vowed to destroy Chechen rebels following the raids, several papers question whether they are the sole culprits.
"Local residents, who tried to shame the bandits, also insist that these were Ingushes," says a report in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, adding that this "partially refutes" claims of an invasion from Chechnya.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
The paper also goes on to quote special services sources rejecting reports that the attackers came from the direction of North Ossetia.
"According to our source, most likely no-one came from anywhere. In the evening people simply put on camouflage clothing, took weapons out of hiding places and went out to the streets to fight."
Novyye Izvestiya also reports eyewitnesses confirming that the majority of the attackers were not Chechen but Ingush.
Kremlin criticised
Outside Russia, the Kremlin comes under criticism for what some see as its failed policy in the region, particularly in neighbouring Chechnya.
Moscow's response to Islamist violence in the region has been "brutal oppression and indirect rule through 'bought' Chechens", says Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . The paper adds that this approach has failed.
Die Presse
Austria's Die Presse believes Russia should change its policy on Chechnya.
The paper calls on Kremlin apparatchiks "to show more imagination" in searching for a solution, and to "think about independence for the republic".
It argues that "their brutal methods" have been driving Chechens into the arms of Islamists for too long.
"Bin Laden is only waiting to open a new front in the Caucasus," the paper warns.
And Spain's El Pais views President Putin's "angry command" to military chiefs to "annihilate" the Chechen rebels as a sign of "both Moscow's humiliation and its fear that the powder keg will spill over into the northern Caucasus".
El Pais
It says the raids have called into question the Kremlin's effectiveness in tackling extremism in the Caucasus, as well as the ability of President Putin's "demoralised army" to face a group of "motivated rebels".
"The Kremlin has very few buttons left to push at the end of 10 years of pitiless war," the paper says.
"What is worse is that Chechen terrorism has grown in parallel with the shameful excesses of a Russian army corrupted and out of control."
'Unfinished business'
Finally, the close of the Marc Dutroux trial in Belgium leaves the Swiss Tribune De Geneve feeling that there is still "unfinished business".
Though Dutroux was jailed for life on Tuesday for a series of child kidnappings, murders and rapes that appalled the nation, the paper points out that, at the end of the 16-week trial, "we know as much at the end as we did at the beginning".
"The fault lies first and foremost with the master manipulator Marc Dutroux," the paper says, whose "stupefying" testimony "polluted" and "confused" the proceedings.
But the presiding judge was no help either, the paper adds, because, he "manifestly proved unequal to the task" and "failed to press the truth out of the defendants".
And the prosecution was no better, as its "obsession with secret networks encouraged those who refuse, against all evidence, to see Dutroux as a lone predator" the paper says.
"True, the judicial truth has been established, but we would like to have known The truth," it laments. The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.
