An explosion yesterday and a shootout between Uzbek police and alleged terrorists outside the capital Tashkent left several people injured, a news agency and a Western diplomat said, citing law enforcement sources.
The incidents followed a two-day spasm of violence, including two suicide bombings, two assaults on police and an explosion at a bomb-making hideaway which killed 19 people and wounded 26. Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed the violence on Islamic extremists and said several arrests had been made already.
A police source told a Western diplomat in Tashkent that a man in a car blew himself up yesterday after being chased by police, and that a shootout had erupted at an apartment that authorities raided to capture three alleged suspects.
Several people were injured in the violence, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing police sources.
The Foreign Ministry and president's office declined to confirm the reports.
The president said that backing for the earlier attacks, on Sunday and Monday, might have come from a banned radical group that has never before been linked to terrorist acts -- Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation. The group denied responsibility.
Security forces beefed up patrols. Yesterday morning, the road heading out of Tashkent to Karimov's official residence to the north was blocked by soldiers and police. Armored personnel carriers were deployed along the road and empty trucks had been placed in intersections to prevent traffic from entering.
The violence began Sunday night with a blast that killed 10 people at a house used by alleged terrorists in the central region of Bukhara, Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov said Monday.
Police found 50 bottles together with homemade ingredients for bombs and instructions on how to make them, a Kalashnikov rifle, two pistols, rounds of ammunition and extremist Islamic literature, he said.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS