On the occasion of the appearance of Wahhabi missionaries in the republic, presidential spokesman Kanybek Imanaliyev said that Kyrgyzstan would "act to stop any expression of religious extremism and terrorism". Security forces in Kyrgyzstan arrested four people on suspicion of involvement in two explosions in the southern town of Osh at the end of May which had killed four people and injured 11 others.
Members of the "Wahhabi" sect, a conservative brand of Sunni Islam containing Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, were believed to have been behind the two explosions. The Russian Defense Minister, Mr. Igor Sergeyev, said, he would meet his counterparts from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to discuss the increasingly complicated situation in Afghanistan and the Taliban advancement towards Russia's border.
FT Asia Intelligence Wire. On the night of October 10, officials of the National Security Ministry's Osh Department confiscated more than tons of smuggled military hardware in southern Kyrgyzstan. The materials reportedly originated in the town of Meshkhed in Iran. According to documents, the military hardware was disguised as humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
Iran was compelled to choose a roundabout route for the hardware. Agency WPS. The first congress of veterans of the war in Afghanistan and other local conflicts was held in Bishkek. The goals of the congress were to promote reform within the Kyrgyz army, combat corruption in the government and military, and assist veterans of the wars and their families BBC. A spokesman of Uzbek Foreign Minister Bakhadyr Umarov, announced that Uzbekistan would leave the CIS Collective Security Treaty because the latter did not meet the demands of the time and it did not perform its designated functions.
In addition, the spokesman said, Tashkent did not agree with Russian military activity in some CIS countries. Russian activities in Armenia and Tajikistan were in particular disliked by Uzbekistan as they helped to promote Russian interests in regions of interest to Uzbekistan.
Interviewed at Tashkent airport before his departure for a summit with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the Kazakh capital, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said that Uzbekistan's neighbors were milking Uzbek supplies of food and goods.
He said that 5, people traveled every day from the southern Kyrgyz town of Osh into eastern Uzbekistan, buying up goods and taking them back to Kyrgyzstan. Deputies of the Kyrgyz parliament were seriously worried about the tense situation on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border after acts of terrorism had taken place in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital.
The deputies maintained that ethnic relations had seriously deteriorated in the Fergana Valley. Kyrgyz deputies demanded that troops be stationed on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border, or the neighbors would be cut off from the water supply. Meanwhile, members of Asaba, the nationalist party in Kyrgyzstan, adopted a resolution according to which Uzbekistan must return all land that had been transferred to that republic under the Soviet rule.
Deputies of the standing chamber of the Kyrgyz Legislative Assembly launched a sharp attack on the government, which had allocated 22, tonnes of wheat from the state reserves to pay for the debt from supplied natural gas owed to Uzbekistan. Iranian radio from Mashhad carried an appeal from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan to the parliaments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan asking them not to extradite to Uzbekistan Muslims seeking "a last refuge" in their countries.
The appeal, signed by the chairman of the Political Department of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, identified as Zubayr ibn Abdurahim, said that under the "the tyrannical, despotic and dictatorial policy carried out by Uzbekistan's government", innocent people were persecuted "only because they were Muslims".
Iterfax Russian News. It was reported that on August 21st, armed Islamists crossed into southern Kyrgyzstan from their bases in Tajikistan, took about a dozen hostages and demanded to be allowed to enter Uzbekistan. Many of the militants, like their leader, Juma Namangani, were Uzbeks from the Fergana Valley, who had fled to Tajikistan during the break up of the Soviet Union in the hope of escaping religious and political persecution. In Tajikistan, Mr Namangani's men had fought alongside the Islamist opposition during the civil war.
They were also alleged to have trained guerrillas for operations inside Uzbekistan. The break into Kyrgyzstan with the intent to stage a rebellion in Uzbekistan was a first attempt of Mr.
Namangani's followers to find their place in the post-war politics of Central Asia. It supported the IMU's claim that the group in Kyrgyzstan was the vanguard of a new jihad or holy war against the Uzbek regime. The Economist Newspaper Ltd : 4 September Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan carried out a joint military operation to flush out a group of 21 fighters from a remote mountainous region of Kyrgyzstan about 15 kilometers eight miles from the Tajik border.
The operation backfired when Tajikistan accused Uzbek bombers of straying over into its territory in a dawn raid. Following a series of official denials, Uzbek President Islam Karimov finally admitted that his air force might have dropped bombs on Tajikistan in its attempt to "liquidate" the rebel group.
Uzbekistan had claimed that eastern Tajikistan was home to secret training camps for Moslem fighters who were trying to overthrow Karimov and set up an Islamic state in Central Asia. Agence France Presse. The government of Kyrgyzstan sent 2, reserve soldiers to the southern part of the country to help fight Moslem rebels.
President Askar Askayev ordered a partial mobilization. The government asked Russia to help fight the rebels. The rebels' numbers were estimated at up to 1, Deutsche Presse Agentur. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan IMU released a statement which said that protection of Muslims and the defense of Islam were the movement's basic goals. The statement said the movement would continue its struggle to free the 50, Muslims currently kept in Uzbekistan's prisons.
The statement also said that the establishment of an Islamic state and Koranic rule in Uzbekistan was only possible by jihad or a holy war against the regime in Tashkent.
The movement warned the Uzbek government that in order to avoid mass destruction in the republic and bloodshed among innocent people, the government must abandon its policy of violence.
In another part of this statement, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan demanded that other countries of the Central Asian region immediately stop their assistance to the Tashkent government. The heads of defense and national security of the republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan held a meeting on 28 August in the city of Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan.
Opinions were exchanged on the deteriorating situation taking shape in the south of Kyrgyzstan which began with the kidnapping of foreign and Kyrgyz nationals on 21 August. In a minute address to the nation broadcast on Kyrgyz radio, President Akayev called upon his people to remain calm over the hostage crisis unfolding in Batken District of Osh Region.
He said the crisis was a manifestation of "the internationalization of both terrorism and extremism". Akayev said Kyrgyzstan had "the firm, unambiguous and stable political support" of the leaders and peoples of Kazakhstan, Tajikstan and Uzbekistan, countries which had pledged to "undertake joint and coordinated efforts to counteract international terrorism. Kyrgyz Vice Prime Minister Boris Silaev announced that his government was negotiating with a third party for the release of hostages, including four Japanese mining engineers, held by rebels in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Silaev stopped short of singling out a country and naming the contact that his government had approached, but he appeared to be referring to the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group in Afghanistan, which supported the rebels. Silaev also said that resolution of the conflict and the release of the hostages were inseparable, and he expressed hope that the problem would be settled by the winter. Meanwhile, in an interview with BBC, a man claiming to be a leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which was believed to be responsible for the kidnapping said that the purpose of the abduction was to exchange the hostages for political prisoners in Uzbekistan.
The Daily Yomiuri. Islamic guerrillas demanded the release of 50, political prisoners in Uzbekistan in exchange for freeing their hostages. In a statement faxed to the presidential office of Kyrgyzstan, the rebels declared a Jihad a holy war against the Uzbek government led by President Islam Karimov with a view to constructing an Islamic state in Uzbekistan. Jiji Press Ticker Service. A member of the Uzbek opposition told Iranian radio that the armed rebels in Kyrgyzstan were Uzbeks fighting for greater freedom of conscience and democracy in Uzbekistan.
He said that Uzbekistan no longer enjoyed good relations with Russia or any of the countries of Central Asia. The Uzbek defense minister said Uzbekistan had alerted its armed forces as a result of the events occurring in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. The Uzbek government had tightened border controls on the order of President Islam Karimov.
Interfax News Agency. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan tried to isolate Islamic militants in the mountains and prevent them from breaking through into the Fegrana Valley in Uzbekistan. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan sent additional units and armored vehicles to their borders with Kyrgyzstan to prevent the invaders from escaping. Ground-strafers were sent after the terrorists. Uzbek aircraft bombed the Kyrgyz village of Kara-Teit. Sporadic skirmishes between the invaders and government troopers were reported.
This occurred at a time when Bishkek did not have the strength to counter on its own the attacks by the rebel opposition to the Uzbek government. Bishkek had hoped that Russia would assist it in fighting the Uzbek guerrillas. However, according to political observers, Russia was not pleased with Uzbekistan's policy of drawing closer to the West and did not have much interest in being involved in direct clashes with the opposition to the government of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
Bishkek announced that a corridor for the Mujaheddins would not be provided and that the operation aimed at their extermination would continue.
For the time being the invaders controlled several villages. More than 4, refugees were fleeing villages taken by the invaders.
The Islamic opposition to the government of Uzbekistan in Kyrgyzstan announced in a statement that if the Kyrgyz government did not respond to their demands, they would announce a jihad against the republic's government.
The fact that the first Russian military aircraft crew arrived in Kyrgyzstan to fight the Uzbek rebels had made the Islamic forces of Uzbekistan react against the Bishkek government. Not a single Central Asian state had been able to head the operations to clear up the crisis. The president's Ak Zhol party wins most seats in parliament, the opposition none. Western observers say the poll was marred by fraud. US officials deny having been notified of the decision and say talks on the base's future continue.
President Bakiyev wins re-election in a vote described by European monitors as "marred". Kyrgyzstan tentatively agrees to allow Russia to establish a second military base. He had been planning to establish a new opposition newspaper. Opposition leaders form interim government headed by former Foreign Minister Roza Otunbayeva.
President Bakiyev resigns and is given refuge in Belarus. Hundreds of thousands of people flee their homes. Kyrgyz ombudsman and international rights groups condemn case as fabricated, politically motivated. His two main challengers refuse to accept the result.
OSCE observers report "significant irregularities". Supporters launch a protest campaign involving sit-ins and periodically blocking the main north-south road. With the rise of the Khanate of Kokand in the early s, Kyrgyzstan fell under the rule of the Khanate. Visitors can still see Tash Rabat, a stone caravanserai like a hotel in Naryn Province, dating from the 15th century. There are also influences from many lands that entered the languages and cultures and even DNA of the people living in the area, likely from passing merchants and travelers.
And although the Epic of Manas is reputed to be much older, the events that it depicts closely match the history of the 16th and 17th centuries. Central Asia was right in the middle of the Great Game of imperial expansion in the s, played out between Russia from the north and Great Britain from the south. At this time, the Khanate of Kokand was much weaker, and so smaller regional rulers had significantly more power. When Alimbek Datka, who was the ruler of the Alai in what is now southern Kyrgyzstan , was murdered in a palace coup, his wife, the strong Kurmanjan, became the newest leader in As the Russians moved closer and closer, Kurmanjan Datka urged a peaceful transition, and in , the Alai region was annexed by the Russian Empire.
A film shows the story of her life as well as the stunning landscapes that she lived in , which is now considered to be an important part of the history of Kyrgyzstan. Turkestan remained a colonial outpost for many years, isolated by distance from the capital in Saint Petersburg, but the advent of railroads at the turn of the 20th century brought more and more Russian settlers, straining limited land and water resources.
This led to the Basmachi Revolt in , followed by harsh Russian reprisals.
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