Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov said the events began Sunday night with an explosion that killed 10 people at a house used by extremists in the central province of Bukhara. There were also two attacks on police Sunday night and early yesterday, killing three policemen, while two suicide bombers killed three policemen and a young child near the Chorsu bazaar in Tashkent's Old City. Kadyrov said the attacks were carried out by Islamic extremists, singling out the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir group and followers of the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam.
President Islam Karimov said the attacks had been planned six to eight months in advance, and were originally set to take place around the Central Asian new year holiday Navruz, which falls on March 21, but heavy security prevented them. The planning and money required to carry out such attacks indicates that there was outside support. "I call on everyone to unite and protect our country from enemies like this, to come forward against them as one fist," Karimov said on state television, also mentioning Hizb ut-Tahrir as a possible source of the attacks. Karimov said several arrests had been made, but gave no details.
Kadyrov said one would-be terrorist had been arrested and that authorities were searching for other suspects, but declined to say how many people might have been involved in the attacks. The Tashkent market blasts were set off by female suicide bombers, outside a children's store and at a bus stop. The US Embassy in Tashkent warned that "other terrorists are believed still at large and may be attempting additional attacks." It cautioned Americans to be on "highest alert," and closed an embassy office in central Tashkent, though the main building remained open.
Kadyrov said the tactic of suicide bombings was previously unknown in Uzbekistan and indicated foreign involvement in the attacks. He added that the explosions in Bukhara occurred in a house that extremists had been using as a bomb-making factory. The police found 50 bottles with handmade ingredients for bombs and instructions on how to make them, as well as a Kalashnikov rifle, two pistols and ammunition. Extremist Islamic literature was also found at the house.
A resident of the city of Bukhara said on condition of anonymity that there were at least two explosions yesterday in the Roshtan district, 9 miles west of Bukhara. Foreign Minister Sadyk Safayev said the situation in the country was stable. "The terrorists aimed to create panic and chaos, but they did not succeed to do so," Safayev said. He also tied the attacks to ongoing terrorist violence in Iraq that focused on police working with US authorities there. "Police are a soft target," he said, when asked about why police were targeted.
Kadyrov said the materials used in the explosives were similar to those used in a series of simultaneous bombings in Tashkent in 1999 - an alleged assassination attempt against Karimov blamed on the terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU. But Safayev declined to say whether yesterday's attack could have been linked to ongoing operations in Pakistan's border regions, in which, according to Pakistani officials, a top IMU leader, Tahir Yuldash, was wounded. If the link to Hizb-ut-Tahrir is confirmed, it would mark the first time the group was directly implicated in a terrorist attack. It claims to be non-violent, but Uzbek authorities in the past have strongly insisted that it was a breeding ground for terrorists, justifying their crackdown on it.
In London, where Hizb ut-Tahrir operates openly, the group denied responsibility. "Hizb ut-Tahrir does not engage in terrorism, violence or armed struggle," said spokesman Imran Waheed. "We feel these explosions come at a very opportune moment for the Uzbek regime. ... One must wonder whether the finger of blame should be pointed at the Uzbek regime itself."
Atonazar Arifov, leader of the opposition Erk party, said he feared a new crackdown on the opposition after the attacks, and claimed there were suspicions of an official set-up: Interior Minister Zokirjon Almatov had visited Chorsu personally and that was "the start of the whole thing," while the police had been preparing a diversion for a while. Uzbekistan is a key US ally in Central Asia, and hundreds of American troops are using a military base in the southern city of Khanabad for operations.
Police and intelligence agents closed off the Chorsu market, the biggest in Tashkent, and vans with investigators were massed in front of the Children's World store, where the blast occurred. There was no visible sign of an explosion from afar. An eyewitness, who didn't give her name, said she felt the ground shake when one of the explosions went off. She said she saw one woman crying over the motionless body of a child. At the nearby First City Hospital where Interior Ministry officials said victims were taken, a man in the hallway was crying "Where is my daughter? Is she alive or dead?" A nurse tried to the comfort him before a doctor approached and scolded her, telling her not to give any information to anyone - even victims' relatives. Another government official down the hallway also warned doctors and nurses not to talk. The Chorsu bazaar has been a common site for small protests by religious women against the detentions of their husbands and sons, part of a crackdown on independent Moslems that has jailed thousands and drawn international criticism. Other bazaars and shops were closed across Tashkent, and soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs were on guard outside the city's central department store and across the city.
Neighboring Kazakhstan stepped up border security and anti-terrorism measures yesterday after the attacks, said Kenzhebulat Beknazarov, Kazakh National Security Committee spokesman. Kyrgyz border guards also beefed up patrols along the Uzbek frontier.
