From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Aug 17 2000 - 11:32:23 EDT
ISLAMIC MILITANTS LAUNCH SECOND INCURSION INTO KYRGYZSTAN
Another group of some 40-50 Islamic militants entered
Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan early on 16 August, less than 24
hours after Kyrgyz spokesmen claimed to have expelled the
surviving members of a first group of invaders, Reuters
reported. In a television address to the Kyrgyz population,
President Askar Akaev said fierce fighting is under way
between the invading militants and Kyrgyz government forces.
Like Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov, Akaev has cancelled his
participation in the informal CIS summit in Yalta on 18-19
August, the presidential press service told ITAR-TASS on 16
August. In his television address, Akaev blamed the two militant attacks
on Kyrgyz territory on Tajikistan, which, he said, had failed
to fulfill its obligation to prevent them from crossing its
frontiers, Interfax reported. General Bolot Djanuzakov, who
is secretary of the Kyrgyz Security Council, said on 16
August that the militants include foreign mercenaries, and
that they have penetrated 8-10 kilometers into Kyrgyz
territory. He criticized the Tajik government's refusal to
allow either Kyrgyz or Uzbek troops to pursue the retreating
Islamists into Tajikistan and eliminate their bases there,
RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau reported. But a Kyrgyz fighter of the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) to which the militants
belong told RFE/RL the same day that the IMU forces did not
enter Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan but had spent the entire
winter in Kyrgyzstan. LF
|
