Non-Subscriber Extract
Militant attacks strike eastern Uzbekistan
03 June 2009
On 26 May, the Uzbek government reported the most serious militant attacks to strike the country for several years when a suicide bomber and gunmen launched separate attacks in nearby towns in the Ferghana Valley region of the country.
Details of the attacks from the highly secretive country remain limited and often contradictory. However, responsibility for at least one of the attacks has been claimed by the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), whose previous activity has largely been confined to Afghanistan and the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan.
The attacks serve to highlight the risk of further violence in Uzbekistan's eastern region, where a mixture of government repression, widespread poverty and high unemployment has created a potent undercurrent of unrest. The subsequent claims of responsibility by the IJU will likewise raise concerns in Central Asia about the ¡involvement of organised militant groups capable of harnessing this discontent, and potentially applying expertise gained in Afghanistan and Pakistan.