Uzbekistan Violence Rages

Police and military clashed with suspected terrorists, including two suicide bombers, killing at least 21 people in a third day of violence Tuesday that rattled the Uzbek capital during a sweep to round up Islamic militants, witnesses and authorities said.

Government forces besieged a hideout near the presidential residence in northern Tashkent, while gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the city.

Attacks on Sunday and Monday had killed another 19 people and wounded 26 in the worst unrest in this majority Muslim country since the secular government became a staunch U.S. ally after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Uzbekistan hosts hundreds of U.S. troops at a tightly secured military base near the Afghan border.

An Interior Ministry officer said 16 suspected terrorists were killed Tuesday outside an apartment building in the neighborhood of Yalangach, near the home of President Islam Karimov. Some had been shot by police but others killed themselves with grenades, said the officer, who refused to give his name.

An Associated Press reporter at the building saw five corpses on a sidewalk. Police investigators and plainclothes security officers with Kalashnikov assault rifles milled about as a white-coated medical officer put the bodies on stretchers.

About 100 yards away, police stopped a small car and two alleged terrorists jumped out and detonated explosive-laden belts, killing themselves and three police officers and injuring five more policemen, said a National Security Service officer who declined to give his name.

There were several operations under way in Tashkent and the surrounding area on Tuesday, said Svetlana Atikova, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor-General's office. She offered no more details, and the lack of official information led to fear and confusion about the number of casualties.

"I don't understand who is killing whom," said Faya Vaganova, a 47-year-old Tashkent resident. "We learn about things only from rumors and we panic."

The ITAR-Tass news agency said the eight alleged terrorists who attacked a police checkpoint near Karimov's official residence were killed, but that report could not immediately be confirmed.

Farida Raupkhajayeva, a 50-year-old resident of Yalangach, said four women pulled up to a police checkpoint in an old red car early Tuesday.

One of the women, dressed entirely in black, got out and approached a bus. Police asked her to stop. When she refused, they shot her in the legs, Raupkhajayeva said. Then the woman set off a bomb.

The other three women then ran into an apartment building and police began a nearly five-hour-long standoff with the suspects. A building resident who refused to give her name said the three women were wearing hijab veils, only revealing their eyes, which is rare in Uzbekistan.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilkhom Zakirov said soldiers and police used empty trucks and an armored personnel carrier to block vehicles along the road to Karimov's residence.

The violence that began Sunday was the most serious in Tashkent since a bombing in February 1999 that killed 16 allegedly targeting the president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered condolences to Karimov in a telephone conversation Tuesday, and the two leaders discussed "practical aspects of stepping up cooperation in fighting terrorism," Russian news agencies reported, citing the Kremlin press service.

Karimov has blamed the violence on Islamic extremists, and said several arrests had been made.

He said Monday that backing for the attacks might have come from a banned radical group that has never before been linked to terrorist acts — Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation. The group has denied responsibility.

Security was stepped up across the city Tuesday, with soldiers on patrol and hotels deploying metal detectors and not allowing vehicles to approach. Soldiers with dogs patrolled the airport, but flights continued.

The violence began Sunday night with a blast that killed 10 people at a house used by alleged terrorists in the central region of Bukhara, Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov said.

Police found 50 bottles with homemade ingredients for bombs and instructions on how to make them, a Kalashnikov rifle, two pistols, ammunition and extremist Islamic literature, he said.

The two assaults on police took place at a factory Sunday night and a traffic checkpoint early Monday. Three officers were killed.

The suicide bombings, carried out 30 minutes apart Monday at a bus stop and the Children's World store in Tashkent's Old City, killed three policemen and a young child in addition to the two female attackers, Kadyrov said.

They were the first suicide bombings ever reported in the five Central Asian nations once ruled by the Soviet Union, which also include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

All the attacks appeared targeted at authorities, including the suicide bombings — the first of which was timed for when police normally gather outside the children's store for their daily morning briefing.

Karimov alleged the attacks were planned six to eight months in advance, and said the planning and funding required to carry out such attacks also indicated they had outside support.

Uzbek authorities claim Hizb ut-Tahrir is a breeding ground for terrorists and have sought so far unsuccessfully to have Washington label it a terrorist group.

Uzbekistan's tiny opposition, banned by Karimov's authoritarian regime from working openly, fears that this week's attacks will deepen a widespread crackdown against dissent and independent Islamic mosques. Thousands have been jailed, drawing international condemnation.