Andijan Attackers' Identity Still Unclear
| Publisher | Institute for War and Peace Reporting |
| Publication Date | 27 May 2009 |
| Cite as | Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Andijan Attackers' Identity Still Unclear, 27 May 2009, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4a1e47e01d.html [accessed 5 June 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
27-May-09
The Uzbek state news agency UzA carried a statement by the prosecution service saying that overnight on May 25-26, a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Khanabad in the eastern Andijan region was attacked by two or three armed individuals.
Prosecutors said that a policeman and one of the attackers were wounded in the resulting exchange of fire, and that all the attackers got away.
Foreign media reports said the offices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which controls the country's uniformed police, and the National Security Service, SNB, in Khanabad were also attacked.
The following afternoon, a suicide bomber killed himself and a policeman, injuring a number of passers-by, the prosecutor's office said.
The statement alleged that the group entered Uzbekistan from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. A May 27 statement by the Kyrgyz border guards denied that anyone had unlawfully crossed the border from their side, although they were prepared to investigate the matter and search for suspects if the Uzbeks could prove this was the case.
Because of the incident, Uzbekistan sealed off its frontier with Kyrgyzstan.
Sources in the region say tight security measures were put in place in Andijan itself and in neighbouring towns.
"There are policemen armed with automatic rifles on the streets checking people's documents," said one observer. "Five armoured personnel carriers were seen at an entry-point to the city."
"Everyone is being advised not to leave home," he added. "There are very few people on the streets, as everybody is afraid."
The same source noted that a few days ago, police in the city were going from house to house checking ID.
A local journalist said the situation looked "quite serious", adding that an SNB officer had advised him not to travel outside Uzbekistan for the next month.
As Uzbek officials are not commenting on these developments and state media have confined themselves to carrying the prosecution service statement, analysts inside the country are finding it hard to make sense of the situation.
"Local officials are not giving interviews, and no one can really explain what armed group was involved in Khanabad, or what exactly happened," said a journalist in the capital Tashkent.
A former police officer in Uzbekistan who used to work on counter-insurgency matters, said the security services and armed forces had been engaged in a major operation by against a group of armed militants which had entered the Uzbek part of the Fergana valley. The attacks in Khanabad and Andijan were, he said, the "unintended consequence" of this operation as it entered its final phase.
"It's more than likely that the militants mounted a show of force as they retreated before the pursuing Uzbek military," said the ex-officer.
Although the prosecutors' statement did not identify the attackers as belonging to any particular group, anonymous security officials who have been quoted in the media have pointed to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU.
In 1999 and 2000, IMU guerrillas mounted raids on Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Uzbek authorities also accuse the IMU of being behind attacks in Tashkent and Bukhara in 2004, as well as involvement in the Andijan violence of May 2005, which ended in government troops gunning down hundreds of demonstrators.
Uzbek state media periodically report on arrests of alleged IMU members or supporters.
An Uzbek political analyst now based abroad, Tashpulat Yoldashev, warns against drawing over-hasty conclusions. He claims that in a number of previous attacks ascribed to the IMU, there are leads that point to the SNB having some involvement.
Diloram Ishakova, a human rights defender who heads the Birdamlik, warns that closing the border with Kyrgyzstan will be bad for diplomatic relations.
Following the attacks, she said, the Uzbek authorities have a "pretext for placing the border under lock and key".
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
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