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| Central Asia |
| US embassy checkpoint attacked in Tashkent |
| 2004-03-31 |
| The Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported a firefight at a checkpoint guarding access to the U.S. embassy in Tashkent. Eight gunmen were killed in the confrontation, ITAR-Tass said. "The black widows have arrived in Uzbekistan" said the Russian paper Vremia Novosti, a reference to Muslim women seeking revenge for husbands who had died in earlier attacks. There were also two clashes at two separate police checkpoints. A U.S. official in Washington said Wednesday that continued unrest in Uzbekistan could seriously undermine Operation Enduring Freedom because "Tashkent is its lifeline," he said. The broader concern in the U.S. capital -- and in Moscow, for that matter -- would be that any serious upheaval in Uzbekistan could start a meltdown among Central Asia's former Soviet satellites. No group has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks, and observers are somewhat puzzled by the Uzbek government's reaction to them. President Karimov immediately blamed the attacks on the illegal Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) one of the two main Islamic fundamentalist movements seeking the overthrow of his regime. But observers noted that the declared aim of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which besides a large following among Uzbeks is also active in Tajikistan, and Kirghizstan, is to topple the government and bring back the caliphate by non-violent means. On Tuesday a spokesman from the movement's London office denied any connection with the attacks. The other major organization is the clandestine Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has carried out terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan before. IMU fighters trained alongside al-Qaida in Afghanistan, and the group is still said to have ties to Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization. Observers feel the IMU would be more likely to have staged the wave of attacks. Hizb ut-Tahrir, on the other hand, has never before been linked to terrorist acts. White House spokesman Scott McClellan declared, "These attacks only strengthen our resolve to defeat terrorists wherever they hide and strike." He said the Bush administration would work "in close cooperation with Uzbekistan and our other partners in the global war on terror." Privately, however, some officials are concerned that the regime will retaliate by launching a fresh crackdown on opposition Muslim politicians, using the excuse of a terrorist threat. Karimov -- a veteran Soviet apparatchik -- already has a dismal human rights record. There are thousands of political prisoners in the notorious Jaslyk jail, and the United Nations has issued a stern criticism over "systematic" use of torture. Tough action against Islamic terrorists would also serve to draw Uzbekistan closer to the United States. But when he visited Tashkent in February, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brought up the subject of human rights with Karimov -- an indication of the Bush administration's discomfort with the Uzbeki leader's repressive tactics. Rumsfeld's visit coincided with the decision of a Tashkent court to free a 62-year-old woman, Fatima Moukhadirova, who had been jailed after staging a public protest following the death in custody of her son, a member of a banned Islamic group. The son had been tortured, and then killed by being thrown alive into boiling water. As the Russian paper bluntly put it, "The regime is perfectly capable of taking advantage of the attacks to take a harder line against the opposition. After all, he has parliamentary elections soon." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 8 gunmen dead? nice shooting Marines! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-03-31 9:43:48 AM |