Uzbeks home in on rebels, Tajiks deny involvement

August 9, 2000
Web posted at: 11:31 a.m. HKT (0331 GMT)

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (Reuters) -- Uzbekistan said on Tuesday it had stepped up efforts to wipe out a group of up to 100 armed rebels it says crossed from neighboring Tajikistan last week.

But Tajikistan denied that the fighters had come from its territory, saying such a large unit would have been noticed.

"Steps have been taken to blockade the armed groups," Uzbek Security Council Secretary Mirakbar Rakhmankulov told a news briefing in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

"The operation to wipe them out has been carefully planned...using all possible means at our army's disposal."

Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said the fighters were getting support from the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), which fought Moscow-backed government forces in Tajikistan's civil war between 1992 and 1997.

The majority of the Islamic-led UTO's members have laid down their arms or joined the government side, but maverick commanders continue to roam the mountainous Central Asian republic which, like Uzbekistan, borders Afghanistan.

"We have reason to believe that a number of representatives of the UTO have offered and are offering clandestine support to the rebels," Kamilov said, adding that Tajik and Uzbek forces were working together to contain and destroy the insurgents.

Uzbek officials have said there were military losses during clashes with the fighters, without specifying whether these were deaths or injuries. There were no civilian casualties.

But Safarali Saifullayev, deputy head of Tajikistan's border defense committee, told Reuters in the capital Dushanbe that the rebels had not crossed from Tajikistan at all.

"I officially state that no fighters crossed from the territory of Tajikistan into Uzbekistan, especially a group the size of the one Uzbekistan is talking about," he said.

Such a large group could not have crossed the border unnoticed by Tajikistan or by Russian border guards patrolling the Tajik-Afghan frontier near where the incident occurred, he said.

Relations between the two neighbors have been strained by a series of security threats in the volatile Central Asian region during the past two years.

Tajikistan has blamed Uzbekistan for supporting armed rebels who attacked its northern Leninabad region in November, 1998.

Uzbekistan has said Tajikistan harbored guerrilla leader Dzhuma Namangani, blamed by Uzbek President Islam Karimov for a series of bomb blasts in Tashkent last year.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Lonely Planet - Destination Uzbekistan
CIA -- The World Factbook 1999 -- Uzbekistan
CIA -- The World Factbook 1999 -- Tajikistan

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