Violent uprising breaks out in Uzbekistan

Uzbek President Islam Karimov and other leaders immediately rushed to Andijan, where witnesses reported chaos in the streets and security forces firing in the air. The city 480km east of Tashkent near the Kyrgyz border has been the scene of growing unrest in recent weeks.

The Russian news agency ITAR-Tass agency said armed protesters surrounded police in two districts. Nine people were killed and more than 30 wounded, it said. In a sign of the seriousness of the situation, the government cut all foreign TV news programming, replacing them with Uzbek and foreign entertainment channels.

Tensions were also running high in the capital Tashkent, where police shot and killed a man they mistakenly thought was a suicide bomber outside the Israeli Embassy. The man was carrying wooden objects that appeared to be explosives, said a police official who wished to remain unnamed.

Both the Israeli and the US embassies in Tashkent have been targeted by suicide bombers in the last year. The government blames Islamic extremists.

The upheaval in Andijan began early Friday when thousands of people poured into the streets, demanding the release of 23 men detained on charges of belonging to an Islamic group that advocates the overthrow of the secular government.

The protesters 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.

Witnesses said some of the protesters attacked a prison and freed its inmates. Atakhonjonov said he could not confirm reports that the crowd had attacked an army garrison as well.

A government spokesman, also reached by telephone from Tashkent, said administrative buildings remained under government control. But the Russian news agency ITAR said nine people were killed and 34 wounded in clashes.

Radical Islam was a bugaboo 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 neighbouring Uzbekistan, where deep-rooted radical groups have been accused of a series of bombings and militant incursions.