The security forces in Uzbekistan have been carrying out regular, large-scale antiterror exercises in Tashkent, suggesting a heightened concern about terror attacks or riots, opposition media are reporting.
The webstie uznews.com has been carrying a series of reports about police and military exercises carried out in the city. A common theme of the reports is that the authorities don't provide any information about the exercises, which then sow panic among locals who wonder what is going on when soldiers storm their neighborhoods. In February, one exercise led residents to believe that there was a hostage situation at a school:
Residents in a Tashkent neighbourhood were terrified to find themselves under attack from terrorists on 25th February, only to learn that the frightening events unfolding around them were apparently being staged as an exercise.
School number 149 was at the centre of events that day; people in camouflage fatigues, helmets and carrying weapons, began to herd passers by away from the neighbourhood and the school.
People who did not come out of their flats were ordered to remain there. At one point the sound of shooting and grenade explosions were clearly audible.
Another drill, at a railway station near the Tashkent airport earlier this month, prompted rumors that prisoners had broken out of a train that was transporting them:
Tenants said that they were frightened when military personnel and a great number of armoured vehicles started shootings at the railway station on 4 May....
“I walked on the bridge and saw military personnel come towards me, some 20 of them wearing helmets and bulletproof vests. ‘Are you going to detain someone?’ I asked. ‘No, do not worry, grandma, we are conducting drills,’ they replied,” the elderly woman said.
Then, a few days ago, another exercise spawned rumors of a terror attack on the Tashkent metro:
According to witnesses, methods of fighting terrorists (or demonstrators) were practiced near the Tashselmash underground station.... Military and police forces were reinforced with two armoured personnel carriers while nearby roads were blocked....
[A]ll of the roads were cordoned off: cars and public vehicles were not allowed to enter the training zone. The area between Tashkent’s old medical institute, the Botkin cemetery and the Tashselmash underground station were closed. Roads were blocked with trucks.
On the event site, there were at least two hundred military servants and policemen, who were concentrated in the area of the military camp and the intersection near the area of the former Mashinostroitel market that was demolished last year. Servicemen were brought there by Isuzu buses that jammed roadsides.
Policemen, judging by all, practiced method of cordoning off the site rapidly and dispersing demonstrators. This was evident at least by the fact that they carried shields. An eye-witness has said that there were two armoured personnel carriers (one of them might have been an infantry combat vehicle), three fire-fighting vehicles and at least one ambulance.
The most recent event prompted uznews to analyze the prevalance of such events, suggesting that President Islam Karimov is afraid of something:
Judging by all, Karimov’s regime is seriously alarmed by the past events in a number of Arabic countries and the on-going one in Syria and is preparing its forces to suppress possible riots and disorders, including real terrorist attacks.
Therefore, drills are held not on the training grounds but in the city, that is under conditions close to reality to the greatest extent possible. Naturally, the public tranquillity and comfort are not taken into account.
Is that in fact what's going on? If so, what's making the authorities so scared?
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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