Uzbek authorities deny troops killed civilians

ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan - Uzbekistan's government said troops had killed "terrorists" not civilians to quell unrest, contradicting witnesses who said they shot hundreds of protesters, including women and children.

An Uzbek opposition party said it had compiled a list of 745 people killed. Witnesses and a human rights activist in Andizhan have put the death toll at about 500.

Uzbekistan's prosecutor general said it was 169, including three women and two children among hostages killed by rebels.

"Not a single civilian was killed by government forces there," Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov told reporters in the capital Tashkent.

"There are absolutely absurd statements that troops opened fire on peaceful demonstrators. A number of news organisations focused on the shooting and used made-up facts on the number of casualties such as the number 500 (of dead)."

He branded the people who took part in the rebellion "terrorists" and said almost all of those killed either had guns in their hands or were nearby. "Only bandits were killed," he said.

On the streets of Andizhan, an overnight gun battle suggested pockets of resistance remained.

Residents of the leafy town of 300,000 have laid flowers on the parched pools of blood outside School No 15 on Cholpon Avenue, where witnesses said the massacre took place.

The unrest, sparked by the trial of 23 Muslim businessmen and blamed by Karimov on Islamic extremists, was the bloodiest chapter in Uzbekistan's post-Soviet history.

Residents and a local human rights activist say the rebellion was staged by locals protesting against poverty, corruption and Karimov's hard line against Muslims.

Reports from witnesses and human rights groups that troops had gunned down hundreds of unarmed protesters have prompted US concern about its ally in the war on terrorism.

"We are deeply disturbed by the reports that the Uzbek authorities fired on demonstrators," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Monday.

"We certainly condemn the indiscriminate use of force against unarmed civilians and deeply regret any loss of life."

The Central Asian country's hardline President Islam Karimov told Boucher to heed his own advice.

"He should apply the same principles to himself and his country if you take into account those wars the US government takes part in," he told reporters.

Karimov has given the United States use of an airbase for operations in Afghanistan. A small group of opposition activists staged a protest outside its embassy in Tashkent on Tuesday.

The United States has also said it is worried that Islamic militants were released from prison when rebels freed 23 businessmen and 2000 other inmates from jail on Friday.

The Uzbek opposition party, the Free Peasants Party, estimate of 745 killed included 203 people it said were shot in Pakhtabad, north of Andizhan. It believed they were people fleeing the massacre in Andizhan.

Witnesses say the first to be killed on Friday were 10 police hostages, pushed ahead of the crowd by rebels who earlier seized a government building. Soldiers later killed some of the wounded with single shots to the head, they said.

"It was a massacre," said a 31-year-old cobbler, one of three witnesses to the slaughter outside the school interviewed by Reuters in Andizhan since Sunday. "This sickening smell of blood, smashed brains, guts, and blood, blood, everywhere. I could not put my feet on a dry spot.

Tension remains high in the town, effectively sealed off by police cordons and road blocks. A diplomatic source said a planned visit by foreign diplomats had been postponed.

The violence in Andizhan followed protests in the nearby Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalal Abad, which led to the overthrow of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev in March -- the third long-serving leader of an ex-Soviet state to go in 18 months.

- REUTERS