Uzbek President Points to Islamic Extremists in Attacks

[Ediacara]

Uzbek President Points to Islamic Extremists in Attacks
Karimov says the group behind violence last spring carried out the embassy bombings.

From Associated Press

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — President Islam Karimov blamed Friday's suicide bombings at the U.S. and Israeli embassies here on the group he accuses of being behind similar attacks earlier this year, pleading in a nationwide TV address Saturday for Uzbeks to spurn extremist Islamic influences.

Karimov spoke after an Uzbek police officer who had been guarding the U.S. Embassy died overnight of injuries from the attack. That raised the death toll to at least six, including the three bombers. The trio of bombings in the Uzbek capital also targeted the prosecutor general's office.

Karimov did not name a suspect in the attacks, but pointedly mentioned Hizb ut-Tahrir, a secretive extremist Islamic group that has spread across Central Asia since the Soviet collapse. The group, whose name means Party of Liberation, claims to disavow violence in its quest to create worldwide Islamic government.

More at the Los Angeles Times

[salin]

1. question...

Is this the leader that is known for huge human rights violations, such as boiling "enemies" to death?

If so, could the attacks be related to the perception (wonder where it would come from) that the US is backing this brutal regime and thus a two-fer... strike at the regime and at its perceived backers?

[Judi Lynn]

3. I never heard any reference to Saddam Hussein's BOILING PEOPLE

How on God's earth can _{George Bush} countenance doing business with this demon? Don't answer that. He suits their purposes just fine. It's proof they actually have NO RESERVATIONS about the most fiendish, sadistic, hellish human behavior possible if it benefits them.

Hail, hail, the gang's all here:










Vicky Clark, Douglas Feith, and you-know-who
with President Islam Karimov.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/pol/us-and-uz.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


US looks away as new ally tortures Islamists

Uzbekistan's president steps up repression of opponents

Nick Paton Walsh in Namangan
Monday May 26, 2003
The Guardian

Abdulkhalil was arrested in the fields of Uzbekistan's Ferghana valley in August last year. The 28-year-old farmer was sentenced to 16 years in prison for "trying to overthrow the constitutional structures".
Last week his father saw him for the first time since that day on a stretcher in a prison hospital. His head was battered and his tongue was so swollen that he could only say that he had "been kept in water for a long time".

Abdulkhalil was a victim of Uzbekistan's security service, the SNB. His detention and torture were part of a crackdown on Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), an Islamist group.
Independent human rights groups estimate that there are more than 600 politically motivated arrests a year in Uzbekistan, and 6,500 political prisoners, some tortured to death. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August two prisoners were even boiled to death.

The US condemned this repression for many years. But since September 11 rewrote America's strategic interests in central Asia, the government of President Islam Karimov has become Washington's new best friend in the region.

The US is funding those it once condemned. Last year Washington gave Uzbekistan $500m (£300m) in aid. The police and intelligence services - which the state department's website says use "torture as a routine investigation technique" received $79m of this sum.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,963497,00.html

[salin]

4. Excellent catalog of pictures of this fiend.

[bicentennial_baby]

2. Uzbekikitty!

[Joanne98]

5. This guy has been dipping his people in boiling water

a new best friend of the Bush family. It's really too bad they didn't get him.