Suicide Ends Uzbekistan Standoff

An Uzbek official said early Thursday that a lone militant who was holed up in a house blew himself up, ending a standoff in the Uzbek capital that has been rocked by four days of violence.

The official said there were no hostages in the house. Police had claimed earlier that several assailants had taken a large number of captives.

Oleg Bichenov, Tashkent city police anti-terrorism deputy chief, said the man — barricaded in a house and surrounded by police — had detonated explosives, killing himself. He said the man was alone.

One police officer had said there were about 20 militants holding "many" captives, and that special police forces were wary of launching an assault, fearing captives would be harmed.

Bichenov had no explanation for the discrepancies.

The standoff late Wednesday and into the early hours Thursday marked the four day of violence in which authorities said 42 people were killed. It marked the first major outbreak of unrest in the Central Asian nation since the former Soviet republic became a key U.S. ally in the war on terror shortly before the Afghan war.