Government troops reclaimed control of an eastern Uzbek town where rebels announced they would build a strict Islamic state, and local residents said yesterday that authorities had arrested the group's leaders.
Some said that about 200 government forces had occupied Korasuv, a town of 20,000 on the border with Kyrgyzstan, overnight and arrested the rebel leader Bakhtiyor Rakhimov and several aides who had announced a plan to rule according to Islamic law. Other residents said the government troops numbered 1,000.
Some local residents said they heard no shots, but others reported sporadic shooting. All refused to give their names, fearing for their safety amid the government crackdown on the uprising.
The government action came after troops fired on protesters in a nearby Uzbek city of Andijan one week ago, killing hundreds, according to witnesses, and causing an international outcry.
The authorities, who fled Korasuv when rioters attacked police and government offices Saturday, returned in full force yesterday.
Several border guards and about 20 soldiers in full combat gear toting Kalashnikovs stood guard near the bridge linking the town with Kyrgyzstan.
With military helicopters flying overhead, terrified Korasuv residents who gathered nearby said that Bakhtiyor Rakhimov, the rebellion leader, and at least three of his aides were arrested by the authorities.
Korasuv people said that some of those arrested were beaten by police and that arrests were continuing. About 20 police officers came to arrest Rakhimov's assistant Arab-Polvon Badanboyev overnight, a resident quoted a Badanboyev relative as saying. Uzbek government soldiers deployed at the bridge leading to Kyrgyzstan said they firmly control the town, but refused any other comment. The rebels in Korasuv did not appear to be armed on Wednesday. "We don't have weapons, but if they come and attack us we will fight even with knives," Rakhimov said then.
"We will be building an Islamic state here in accordance with the Koran," he said, presenting a new challenge to the government that is struggling to stabilize the Central Asian nation following the violent crackdown on protest in Andijan.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov has blamed the violence in Andijan on Islamic militants and denied firing on civilians, but an AP reporter and numerous other witnesses saw troops firing on civilians.
At the Andijan protest, only social and economic demands could be heard as speaker after speaker complained about stark poverty and widespread unemployment and the government's stifling of private business. They denied having any Islamic agenda.
But observers of the impoverished Central Asia region have long feared that any social unrest could be used by Islamic groups to promote their own goals.
Ikbol Mirsaitov, a Kyrgyz expert on Islam, said that the 23 businessmen in Andijan whose trial sparked the protest were linked to a local governor. He said that Rakhimov, a wealthy farmer, had links to the group dubbed Akramis.
"It was all about clan struggle," Mirsaitov said yesterday, adding that Rakhimov was apparently driven by business interests and only used Islamic slogans to generate support.
Facing international criticism for massive violence against civilians, Karimov's government apparently opted for a less heavy-handed approach in Korasuv as it sought to prevent the unrest from spreading across the densely-populated Fergana Valley, brimming with Islamist sympathies.
RSS