UZBEKISTAN: Were the 47 terrorists or political opponents? Daniel McLaughlin reports from Moscow.
A week of bloody battles between police and suspected Islamic militants has put US ally Uzbekistan on alert for an al-Qaeda onslaught, while prompting urgent warnings from human rights groups about a violent crackdown on peaceful political opposition.
At least 47 people died in explosions, suicide bombings and gun attacks in the capital Tashkent and the ancient Silk Road city of Bukhara, which Uzbek officials called the work of Muslim radicals determined to split the US-led coalition against terror.
Mullahs at Uzbekistan's state-run mosques denounced the attackers as "un-Islamic" yesterday and urged worshippers to help police catch suspects and prevent further unrest.
But New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the country for using the attacks - the first since Uzbekistan allied with Washington after September 11th 2001 - as a pretext to seize dozens of critics of authoritarian president Mr Islam Karimov.
"The government seems to be going after the usual suspects, targeting religious dissidents and their families - people they've already prejudged as 'enemies of the state'," said Ms Rachel Denber, of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division.
The group is one of several rights organisations that say Mr Karimov's regime uses arrest and torture to silence dissent, while claiming to be fighting Islamic extremism.
"Detainees held incommunicado in Uzbekistan are in immediate danger of torture," said Ms Denber. "We are concerned that the recent arrests signal the launch of another intensification of the ongoing crackdown, similar to what happened after the Tashkent bombing in 1999."
Mr Karimov claimed that attacks in 1999 were intended to kill him, and authorised a massive security sweep that has landed some 7,000 people in jail accused of religious extremism.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was blamed for the bombings, as well as for the kidnapping of Japanese geologists and American climbers in 1999 and 2000.
Under their leader Juma Namangani, IMU members fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan against US forces, in battles that reportedly killed Namangani and severely depleted the IMU's ranks.
Washington included the group on its list of terrorist organisations but, despite Mr Karimov's claims of victory over his nemesis Namangani, Central Asian experts say the IMU survives in the region and could have launched last week's attacks as a show of strength. Pakistani authorities claimed this month to have wounded one of the IMU's leaders, Tahir Yuldash, in fighting near its border with Afghanistan.
"The IMU has a very effective underground grid in Central Asia, which has not been cracked by any of the governments," said Mr Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on extremism in Central Asia.
"I don't think you can ignore the timing, that there is a squeeze on the IMU - it makes sense for them to retaliate." Uzbek officials have also blamed the Hizb ut-Tahrir group for the wave of violence, despite the movement's pledge to use only peaceful means to achieve its goal of creating an Islamic republic in former Soviet Central Asia.
"Hizb ut-Tahrir does not engage in terrorism, violence or armed struggle," said spokesman Imran Waheed in London. "We feel these explosions come at a very opportune moment for the Uzbek regime. One has to wonder whether the finger of blame should be pointed at the Uzbek regime itself."
Mr Karimov has ruled Uzbekistan since 1989, just as cracks appeared in the Soviet Union and the breath of liberal reform wafting south from Moscow allowed Islamic groups to find their voice in Central Asia.
With neighbouring Tajikistan convulsed by civil war after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr Karimov insisted that a strong hand was needed to prevent chaos engulfing a volatile region bordering Afghanistan, China and Iran.
But analysts argue that Mr Karimov's refusal to countenance any political opposition has only radicalised his critics and driven them underground, into the arms of a global militant network led by al-Qaeda. They also criticise the West for turning a blind eye to gross rights abuses committed by an important strategic ally.
Mr Alexei Malashenko, a specialist in Islamic affairs at Moscow's Carnegie Centre, said the spasm of violence could be radicals' way of punishing Mr Karimov for allowing hundreds of US troops to use an Uzbek airbase for raids in Afghanistan.
But he told The Irish Times that it was also impossible to disentangle grassroots Islamic extremism from Mr Karimov's denial of basic democratic freedoms to his people.
"This does have its own social background in Uzbekistan. People are frustrated, disappointed, there are no reforms," Mr Malashenko said. "If Karimov was ready to open even a small window to democratic opposition, then the Islamists wouldn't be so strong."