Uzbek Update

d together with Juma Namangani announced the creation of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

In 1999 IMU operatives detonated six car bombs in Tashkent in a failed effort to assassinate Karimov. The explosions killed 13 and wounded 128 people. The following year, IMU guerrillas based in neighbouring countries invaded southern Uzbekistan and penetrated as close as 60 miles to Tashkent before they were driven back.

So…on the one hand Karimov, a brutal hangover from Soviet Communism, on the other, the fundamentalists of the IMU….and in the middle, the Uzbek people.

Is Kabuljon Parpiyev, as Karimov claims, an extremist? He says not – but can any protest against Karimov avoid being co-opted by the fundamentalists, whether the IMU or our old friend Hizb-ut-Tahrir (“today the Guardian, tomorrow the world”) who have been implicated by Uzbek authorities? And for how long will the US continue to view Karimov as one of our bastards?