TASHKENT, 31 March 2004 — Uzbek special forces stormed a militant hideout in a Tashkent suburb yesterday, leaving up to 23 people dead after a day-long siege, the Interior Ministry said.
The battle in Yalangach, three km from one of President Islam Karimov’s residences, followed explosions on Monday in the Central Asian state — blamed by authorities on militants — that killed 19 people.
After yesterday’s siege, five corpses clad in black and identified by police as “terrorists” lay outside, each with bullet wounds.
“In the process of being detained, 20 terrorists blew themselves up. Three policemen also died and five were injured,” the Interior Ministry statement said.
Residents and officials at the scene said 20 people were killed.
Monday’s blasts, two caused by female suicide bombers, raised concern in Washington, which uses an Uzbek airbase for operations in neighboring Afghanistan.
The ex-Soviet state has drawn criticism from Western countries and rights groups for its tough tactics against Islamic opposition, including accusations of widespread torture.
Karimov’s hard-line secularist government blamed Monday’s attacks on Islamist groups. One group promptly denied the allegations, saying the government had orchestrated the blasts to justify a crackdown on dissent.
Uzbekistan swiftly sealed its border with Tajikistan, Tajik border authorities said, apparently seeing its neighbor as an infiltration route for militants. Special forces in helmets and bullet-proof vests rested 100 meters from a brick house where the fighters had held out. The building’s annex was smoldering and had lost its roof.
“You just can’t imagine how terrible it was,” said Lyudmila, 76. “First the special forces turned up like a bolt from the blue, all wearing masks and armed to the teeth. Then we were hastily evacuate with our relatives, and heard explosions and the shooting.”
Another resident, Farida, said the fighters took up defensive positions and shot dead a villager, taking him for a policeman.
The resident saw special forces running away from a woman apparently wearing a belt with explosives, who then ran after a bus carrying morning shift workers. But the vehicle sped away.
“Then the police shot her in the leg, she fell down and then she blew herself up,” said Farida. “The woman’s head flew over the wall and into the courtyard.”
A policeman said several militants had blown themselves up to avoid capture.
Two groups, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, expressed fear that authorities “might take discriminatory and repressive actions” against religious communities and opposition groups.
“Improving human rights in Uzbekistan... could reduce the threat of terrorism,” a joint statement issued in Vienna said.
Russia sees the region, also including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as the “soft underbelly” of the former Soviet Union. Moscow, fighting separatists in Chechnya, shares Tashkent’s concern about militant activity or infiltration into the area from Afghanistan.
