The Hindu : Renewed attacks in Uzbekistan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 31, 2004

International

International

Renewed attacks in Uzbekistan

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, MARCH 30. Terrorists struck again in Uzbekistan on Tuesday, a day after 19 people were killed in several bomb attacks in the former Soviet republic in Central Asia.

A group of terrorists attacked a traffic police checkpoint near Tashkent, killing and wounding several policemen today. The RIA Novosti news agency quoted a source in the Uzbek security services as saying that eight terrorists had been killed in a house where they barricaded themselves after throwing a bomb and opening fire at the checkpoint.

A minibus exploded near a strategic dam in Uzbekistan. Had the dam been damaged, water wound have flooded Tashkent, Russia's Mayak radio reported. The radio also said a female suicide bomber blew herself up in Tashkent.

The attacks came a day after a series of bomb blasts in the capital and in the ancient city of Bukhara killed 19 and wounded 26 persons, according to the country's Prosecutor General, Rashid Kadyrov. He said two female suicide bombers detonated explosive-laden belts in Tashkent, killing three policemen, a child and themselves. On Monday, 10 persons were killed in Bukhara when a bomb they were allegedly preparing went off accidentally.

Unprecedented security measures have been clamped down in Tashkent today, RIA Novosti said. Pre-school nurseries have been closed.

Police and military patrols are checking all transport entering the city. Police seized 920 kg of explosives in anti-terror operations.

Uzbekistan's President, Islam Karimov, blamed the violence on Islamist extremists, and said several arrests had been made.

The planning and money required to carry out such attacks also indicated it had outside support, he said. In 1999, several terror strikes in Tashkent killed 20 people.

Moscow condemned the attacks and said they were added proof that terrorists picked their targets irrespective of geographic, political or religious considerations.

Russia is closely interacting with Uzbek security services in combating international terrorism, a spokesman for the Russian Federal Security Service or FSB said today.

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