in southern Kyrgyzstan. The people included Bakiyev's adviser Usen Sydykov, then a powerful politician in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyzstan security forces arrested the two. Masaliyev had just arrived from Moscow. The arrest fueled speculation that the Kremlin was working to produce instability. Elmira Nogoybayeva, the head of the Kyrgyz Polis Asia Analytic Center, noted in May that Russia and its ally Kazakhstan launched a consistent mass media campaign to discredit the image of Kyrgyzstan. On 14 June 2010, Eurasian expert Giorgi Kvelashvili stated that Moscow's actions appeared to be part of a larger calculated plan. International organizations have not supported the view that the June events were orchestrated from outside. According to Human Rights Watch "[the] violence in southern Kyrgyzstan began on June 10, when a large crowd of ethnic Uzbeks gathered in response to a minor fight between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in a casino in the center of Osh. Several violent attacks during the night of June 10 against ethnic Kyrgyz and the torching of several buildings enraged ethnic Kyrgyz from Osh and outside villages, thousands of whom filed into the city." Uzbekistan was supposed to be concerned that Russia was using the events to consolidate its power over Central Asia, including Uzbekistan. Stratfor reported on 13 June that "the crisis has moved from being an internal Kyrgyz emergency to a confrontation between Uzbekistan and Russia. Russia has proven this past year that it is on a path of consolidation in Central Asia – of which Uzbekistan could be the toughest link in the chain to control". Outbreak In late May 2010, hundreds of residents of the Uzbek enclave of Sokh in Kyrgyzstan blocked a main highway leading to Uzbekistan, demanding greater security after several of their cars were allegedly vandalized. Uzbekistan then deployed limited military and police forces into the enclave, but they withdrew on 3 June. During the political chaos that followed the ouster of Kurmanbek Bakiyev tensions between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks increased. Violence erupted in the evening of 10 June in Osh. According to most accounts, a dispute in a casino between young Uzbeks and Kyrgyz was a watershed in the violence. Both groups called friends to come to help and clashes continued throughout the night. Crowds of Kyrgyz from the countryside flocked to Osh, Jalal-Abad, and other towns to join the local Kyrgyz and Uzbek crowds to attack each other's neighborhoods. From 11 June through