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| Central Asia |
| Andrew Apostolou on terror in Uzbekistan |
| 2004-08-02 |
| The terrorist attacks in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, on Friday are a testament to the continued vitality of the al Qaeda movement. Three suicide-bomb blasts outside the embassies of Israel and the U.S. and the office of the Uzbek state prosecutor killed three terrorists and three innocent Uzbeks. Responsibility for the attacks has been claimed by the Jihad Islamic Group (JIG), a successor to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an organization allied with al Qaeda. The JIG is also known as "Jamoat" (meaning "societies" or "groups" in Uzbek). The IMU was probably behind car bombs in Tashkent in February 1999 that aimed to assassinate Uzbek President Islam Karimov and that killed 16 persons. In its new guise as Jamoat, the organization issued a statement in April 2004 claiming responsibility for a series of explosions from March 28 to April 1, 2004 that took the lives of 33 terrorists and 14 bystanders and policemen. The trial of 15 suspects from the March and April bombings began on July 26. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |