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New Blasts Rock Uzbekistan, 20 Killed
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A man sits on the road leading out of the Uzbek capital Tashkent that has been blocked by an armored personnel carrier
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TASHKENT,
March 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - New blasts and
shootings rocked the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan Tuesday,
March 30, with reports that 20 suspected militants were killed near
the presidential residence in the capital Tashkent.
"We
have eliminated 20 people," a security officer involved in the
operation told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Svetlana
Artykova, spokeswoman for the prosecutor general office, earlier told
AFP that two blasts hit the capital Tuesday, declining to give more
details.
One
of the blasts went off near a traffic police checkpoint in the
Kibraisky region just outside the capital Tashkent.
Witnesses
told AFP that they saw three bodies lying at the checkpoint after the
explosion, including one in police uniform.
The
RIA Novosti news agency quoted an unnamed law enforcement official as
saying that several people were hurt after a blast went off at the
checkpoint and a 10-minute shootout between police and unidentified
people.
No
official information was available on the second incident, but
unconfirmed reports said that a bomber had blown herself up somewhere
in Tashkent.
The
attacks came a day after a series of blasts and police shootouts in
Tashkent and the ancient city of Bukhara killed 19 people and injured
26 others.
"These
were terrorist acts. There is reason to believe they were prepared
over a long period and coordinated from a center, possibly abroad. All
the terror acts are inter-connected, according to our preliminary
investigation," Prosecutor General Rashid Kadyrov told reporters
Monday.
Uzbek
officials pointed a finger of accusation at Hizbi Tahrir, a group that
advocates peacefully setting up an Islamic state and is banned across
Central Asia.
"There
is direct connection between the terrorist acts, extremist ideology
and Hizbi Tahrir," Foreign Minister Sadyk Safayev said.
However,
the group repudiated the claims.
"Hizbi
Tahrir ... denies any involvement whatsoever in today's
explosions," the group said in a press release issued in London.
The
wave of blasts and shootouts were the deadliest in the republic since
16 people were killed in a wave of explosions in Tashkent in 1999.
The
blame for the 1999 blasts, which were apparently aimed against the
hard-line secular regime of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, was laid on
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
Those
attacks lead to a crackdown on Islamic movements in the region, and
analysts have warned that Monday's attacks would likely result in a
further government crackdown.
The
IMU aim is to declare an Islamic state in the Ferghana Valley, which
straddles Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Krygyzstan.
U.S.
Ally
The
U.S. embassy warned Monday that "extremists" might be
plotting more attacks and advised U.S. citizens in the country to be
on "the highest alert."
"The
authorities raided a terrorist safe house, and have made some arrests,
but other terrorists are believed still at large and may be attempting
additional attacks," it said.
Uzbekistan,
which became a key ally of the United States after the 9/11 attacks,
hosts hundreds of U.S. troops at a tightly secured military base near
the Afghan border.
Critics
have long warned that U.S. support for Karimov's leadership is
misplaced, saying the Uzbek security forces' use of torture and secret
executions threaten to radicalize hitherto peaceful Muslims, who risk
the authorities' wrath for practicing their faith.
"Our
concern is that the government reaction to this is going to be another
massive crackdown like the one we saw after the 1999 bombings, not on
people who use violence but on peaceful independent Muslims,"
Acacia Shields, Central Asia senior researcher for U.S.-based Human
Rights Watch, told AFP in Tashkent.
Pavel
Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defense analyst, said the impoverished and
corrupt Central Asian states, in particular its most populous nation
Uzbekistan, were at risk of a growing backlash.
"This
is very dangerous for the region, which risks being destabilized,
including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan," he said.
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