Rioters reportedly free Uzbek inmates
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- Thousands of people, many of them armed, took to the streets of an eastern Uzbek city today, attacking a prison and freeing the inmates to protest the detention of prominent businessmen on charges of Islamic extremism, witnesses said.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov and other leaders immediately rushed to Andijan, where witnesses reported chaos in the streets. The city, 300 miles east of Tashkent near the Kyrgyz border, has been the scene of growing unrest in recent weeks.
The 23 defendants are charged with anti-constitutional activity and forming a criminal and extremist organization, but rights activists say the case is part of a broad government crackdown on religious dissent.
Valijon Atakhonjonov, the brother of one of the accused, said security forces fired shots in the air as thousands of people massed in front of the local administration building.
''The people have risen," he said by telephone.
Armed demonstrators freed the inmates, Atakhonjonov said, but he could not confirm reports that the crowd had also attacked an army garrison.
Also today, police shot and killed a suicide bomber outside the Israeli Embassy in Tashkent, the US Embassy said. Police sealed off the street where the embassy is located. There was no early indication the attempted attack was related to the events in Andijan.
On Wednesday, several thousand people protested the allegations against the men, who have been on trial since February on charges of being Islamic extremists. It was one of the largest protests in the ex-Soviet republic.
Radical Islam was a problem for the Soviet Union long before its collapse and was partly behind Moscow's decision to invade Afghanistan in the last days of 1979. The movement continues to bedevil Central Asian leaders, especially in Uzbekistan, where deep-rooted radical groups have been accused of a series of bombings and militant incursions.
Uzbekistan emerged as a key US ally after the Sept. 11 attacks, and hosts hundreds of US troops. 