Group Linked to Al Qaeda Suspected in Uzbek Unrest

Unlike in Iran, Islam in Uzbekistan after seven decades of Communist rule has largely been a moderate force. Few women in cities wear head scarves, mosques do not broadcast the call to prayer, beards are rare and alcohol is plentiful. But discontent has spread in this land of 25 million people along with economic hardship. Some specialists estimate that urban unemployment exceeds 40 percent, and possibly 60 percent among city dwellers under 30.

The Chorsu bazaar near Children's World offers a tableau of the hardscrabble life endured by many Uzbeks. Every day women spread sheets and sit on the asphalt trying to sell disparate goods -- toothpaste, shoes, bras, razors, eggs, pens and a laundry detergent called Barf. "You need to study our economy to understand the place," grumbled one trader who would not give her name. "See how people live?"

The adversity has muted public anger at the terrorist acts, with some Uzbeks suggesting the government had it coming. "Karimov himself is guilty of the whole thing," said Vladimir, 28, who makes $70 a month working in two factories. "He led the country to this point." Uzbeks, Vladimir added, regard the police "with disgust" because "for a little thing they can put you in jail."

The suicide bomber outside Children's World on Monday morning apparently targeted patrolling police officers during a shift change. Nilufar Yusumetova and other store clerks were sweeping the sidewalk when the blast occurred a couple of yards away. The sight left her shocked a few days later. "The leg was right there," she said, pointing. "Her head was over there. Her body was here."

Nasiba Djamalova was inside fixing a window display when the glass shattered and something hit her leg. She thought it was a brick. Only later, she said, did she learn that she had been struck by the charred and decapitated head of the suicide bomber. "If I'd known," Djamalova said, "I would have fainted."

Across town, at an apartment complex in Yalangacha few miles from Karimov's residence on the city's outskirts, residents said militants who battled police on Tuesday made a point of trying not to target civilians.

One resident said a female militant followed her into the apartment building but did not try to chase her into her flat, choosing instead to blow herself up. "She didn't mean harm to the people," said the woman, who like other tenants declined to give her name after police told them to stop speaking to visiting journalists. "She didn't try to open the doors. She didn't do anything to us."

But the militants did kill one resident, possibly by accident, a death that the government has not acknowledged. Shakir Muslimov, 34, wearing a new suit, emerged from his door at the wrong moment and was shot to death by a pistol-wielding militant who might have mistaken him for a police officer, according to his brother Shavkat. "He ran right into them," Shavkat said. "He just came out by accident."

Several other women blew themselves up over the course of the next seven or eight hours, neighbors said, while male militants were shot by police. By day's end, 20 suspected militants and three police officers had been killed, the Uzbek Interior Ministry said.

"They were shooting back at the military," said a 30-year-old woman wearing a frayed blue robe and worn pink plastic sandals. "This was a real war."