Posted by NEWS on 30/7/2004, 15:16:53 The third blast on Friday went off either inside or near the general prosecutor's office headquarters. "There are two dead, both Uzbek citizens, and there may be a third dead. There are no Israeli casualties that we know of. The blast occurred outside the embassy," an Israeli source said. Israel Radio said one of the dead was an Uzbek worker and the second may have been a security guard. A US official said the blast outside his country's embassy was set off by a human bomber. Cordoned off "Five people were wounded," Interior Minister Zakirdzhon Almatov said. "The blast was set off by a man who wore a suicide belt," the unidentified official told the Interfax news agency. He said the embassy was now cordoned off. Interfax separately reported that there were casualties, but it remained unclear in which of the blasts. A series of attacks strikes struck Uzbekistan in March, with at least 47 people killed in attacks sparked by Muslims dissatisfied with the country's leadership. Uzbekistan, a key US ally in the region, blamed the attacks on dissidents and closed its borders to all but freight, saying the measure was needed to keep more of them from getting in. Suspicion for those attacks has mainly focused on two groups - the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Hizbi Tahrir. The IMU aims to establish an Islamic state in the Ferghana Valley, which straddles Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and was pushed into Afghanistan by the government of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. Most of the IMU was thought to have been decimated during the US campaign in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, and after the death of its charismatic leader Djuma Namangani, reportedly a close associate of Usama bin Ladin. There was no initial claim of responsibility for Friday's blasts.
Explosions rock Tashkent
At least two people have died and five wounded in three explosions that rocked the Uzbek capital, one near the US embassy and another outside Israel's.
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