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Woman bomber kills one in Uzbekistan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-02 09:01 A woman detonated a bomb
Thursday in central Uzbekistan, killing one person and critically injuring
herself, and the government for the first time said al-Qaeda was behind this
week's attacks that left at least 44 dead, mostly alleged militants.
Ilya Pyagay, the Interior Ministry's deputy anti-terrorism chief, told The
Associated Press that those behind the unrest, including some fugitives, were
followers of the strict Wahhabi strain of Islam believed to have inspired Osama
bin Laden.
"These are Wahhabis who belong to one of the branches of the international
al-Qaeda terror group," he said.
The Uzbek government often uses the Wahhabi label to tar anyone who worships
outside state-run mosques, and Western diplomats and human rights activists say
official repression could actually be to blame for the violence. The government
also uses alleged Wahhabi affiliation to refer to the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan — a terror group linked to al-Qaeda that Uzbek officials say has been
wiped out in the country.
In the latest violence Thursday, police said a woman detonated the bomb in a
two-story apartment building in the central Bukhara region. She was hospitalized
in critical condition, according to a police duty officer who declined to give
her name.
Police said a man was killed, but Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency reported the
woman's daughter was killed.
The officer said the blast was linked to Sunday's explosion at an alleged
bomb-making hideaway in the same area. ITAR-Tass said the woman's husband was
killed there, citing a law enforcement source.
Meanwhile, police said a standoff ended early Thursday when a "lone bandit"
blew himself up. Pyagay said there were no hostages, although police earlier had
said several captives had been taken.
An Associated Press photographer saw a body being taken away Thursday as
soldiers stood by, allowing only residents into the neighborhood.
Citing Interior Ministry sources, ITAR-Tass reported the man had threatened
to blow himself up with his wife and a child, but that they were released after
negotiations. Investigators believe he might have been trained in terrorist
camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, ITAR-Tass said.
All land border crossings into Uzbekistan have been closed, the Border
Protection Committee said, including the already tightly controlled Friendship
Bridge crossing into Afghanistan.
President Islam Karimov initially hinted the attacks and bombings since
Sunday were connected to the extremist Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, even though
thousands of its members have been arrested. The group, which has no known link
to terrorist violence, has denied involvement, and police said no suspects
interrogated so far were members.
The number of Wahhabis in Central Asia is believed to be small, said Acacia
Shields, Central Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of a report
on religious oppression in Uzbekistan.
She said the Uzbek regime has labeled as Wahhabi anyone who worships outside
state-run mosques — even those who simply study the Quran at home.
"The government is now, it appears, trying to conflate Saudi-style Wahhabism
— which has been linked to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda — with its own misuse of
the term and thereby suggest peaceful Muslim dissidents in Uzbekistan are just
like al-Qaeda," Shields said.
The events also appeared to spark a deeper crackdown on independent Muslims.
Human Rights Watch confirmed six arrests in Tashkent and the surrounding
region, and another two women and three children were detained overnight and
released, said Allison Gill, the group's Uzbekistan researcher. She said none
appeared linked to the violence.
"The volume of arrests just in the last 24 hours is high," she said. "It
seems (authorities) are using this as a pretext to get people that they wanted
anyway."
Analysts and local observers say the attacks likely aren't related to
Tashkent's cooperation with the United States, which based troops in Uzbekistan
shortly before the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11
attacks. The main targets of all attacks appears to have been police — not
Western institutions.
"The causes here in Uzbekistan are extreme repression and deepening poverty
caused by the Karimov regime," said British Ambassador Craig Murray.
The Muslim Spiritual Board, the state-allied agency that runs the country's
religious life, called imams from across the country to Tashkent to coordinate a
unified line on the violence ahead of Friday prayers.
Imam Qotib Abdugafur Rozzaq, the official Islamic leader in Bukhara region,
was quick to condemn Wahhabis.
"They are like communists, they want to spread their ideas all over the
world. That's why they are called fundamentalists and fanatics," he said. "They
sow death, terror and fear among peaceful people."
In the past, the Uzbeks have also labeled as "Wahhabis" the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan, blamed for a 1999 Tashkent bombing that killed 16 people, said
Ahmed Rashid, an expert on the region. "What they called Wahhabis in the past
was always the IMU," he said.
The attacks that the government alleged were carried out by female suicide
bombers aren't typical for extremist Wahhabis, Rashid said, noting women haven't
been directly involved in al-Qaeda attacks.
A Western diplomat in Tashkent said the IMU has devolved from a more military
organization — which carried out incursions across Central Asia from 1999-2001 —
to a cell-type structure since it lost hundreds of fighters in battles with
U.S.-led forces in northern Afghanistan in 2001.
The State Department has also hinted that the IMU is behind the latest
attacks, noting it was the only known dominant threat in the
country.
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