A recent bomb blast in central Bishkek and a skirmish in the city of Osh alarmed the public and again raised security challenges to the top of the agenda in Kyrgyzstan. The authorities relate these incidents to the increased activity of terrorist organizations in the country and claim to have the situation under control. However, controversial statements of the law enforcement bodies regarding the responsible for the recent incidents cause concern among the public.
On November 30, an early-morning blast shook Bishkek. A homemade explosive device was installed near the city’s largest sports complex, which is used as the main venue for the trial against former President Bakiev and his allies, charged with the mass murder of protestors during April 7 events. A court hearing, which was scheduled for the same morning the blast occurred, was cancelled. As a result of the explosion, which allegedly was aimed at causing panic among the public, three people were injured, including two policemen.
The explosion was hastily termed a terrorist act by the Kyrgyz authorities and connected with the recent series of police raids and arrests of an alleged group of conspirators who were ostensibly planning terrorist attacks across the country.
Right after the blast, the deputy head of the Kyrgyz National Security Service (KNSS) Kolbay Musaev, organized a press conference stating that a group of 39 people were planning to organize more than 30 terrorist acts in the cities of Bishkek and Osh. Other terrorist acts were planned to take place in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan, aimed to destabilize the situation in the region and the country in general. According to Musaev, this group is closely affiliated with the Islamic Jihad Union and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), both international terrorist organizations. The “list of 39” includes those who were killed and arrested as a result of the special operations conducted during the previous two months, he concluded.
It is notable that one day prior to the Bishkek incident, Kyrgyz security services and police jointly conducted a special operation in central Osh in the south of the country. The residents of the targeted house opened fire, leaving four security officers injured. The exchange of fire lasted for a few hours and spread panic among the Osh residents, whose memories of bloody ethnic clashes in June are still fresh. At the end of the operation, four armed people were killed including Farhat Nurmatov, an imam of the local mosque, who allegedly led the group. Two other suspects were arrested. The raid discovered a number of automatic weapons, grenades and explosives. A week before the incident, Minister of Interior Zarylbek Rysaliev, announced that nine people suspected of planning terrorist acts had been arrested, while the security services claimed that two leaders of terrorist groups were detained in early October.
Interestingly, there are two official versions regarding the affiliations of the group behind the blast and other possible terrorist acts. Whereas the KNSS leadership retains the position that the group is related to international terrorist organizations like the IMU, the Interior Minister and Marat Imankulov, Secretary of the Security Council, claim that the group is strictly local and has a “nationalist-separatist nature”. “These people are nationalist-separatists and their main aim is to discredit the democratic reforms by destabilizing the situation in the country”, the Security Council Secretary stated.
In the meantime, the suspects arrested during the Osh incident are giving their first testimonies. They have confessed that the group was planning to conduct a series of acts in Bishkek and major southern cities, according to the investigation group. “Moreover, the suspects named some of the former Kyrgyz Parliament members who allegedly are involved in the recent incidents”, the investigators claim while refusing to make the names public in the interest of the investigation.
The opinions of political and military experts are also divided over the perpetrators’ nature and reasons for the explosion. General Artur Medetbekov, former deputy head of the KNSS, related the incident to the one-day visit of the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Bishkek on December 2. It could be an act of intimidation and an attempt to demonstrate the weakness and failure of the current government, Medetbekov stated. The general claimed that the perpetrators could be ethnic Uzbeks who fled to Afghanistan and Pakistan after the June events and, after being trained in terrorist camps, aimed to conduct such attacks on the territory of the country.
On the other hand, some experts claim that the blast near the place of the trial against the leaders of the previous regime was aimed at disrupting the court hearings. According to this version, the incident was paid and organized by those who were forced to leave the country as a result of the April events.
Regardless of the underlying motives, these incidents again raised security as a chief concern among the Kyrgyz public.
