Uzbek violence threatens stability in Islamic trouble spot

Recent disturbances in the Uzbek city of Namangan have revived fears in government circles of an Islamic revival - something President Islam Karimov has been trying to fend off. But is there a real Islamic threat to Karimov, or is his own negative attitude to Islam helping to create the problem? Here's BBC regional analyst Malcolm Haslett: Namangan, in the fertile Ferghana valley in eastern Uzbekistan, is not President Karimov's favourite city. It has stuck more closely to Islamic tradition, even during the Soviet period, than anywhere else in Uzbekistan. And on a visit there in 1992 Mr Karimov was reportedly given such a hard time by angry residents that he only extricated himself by promising significant concessions to the political and religious opposition.

The experience so unnerved him, it's said, that instead of putting those concessions into practice he decided on a major clampdown. Special forces were sent in to arrest hundreds of islamic activists.

Now Namangan has reinforced its reputation of being a trouble spot, at least as far as Mr Karimov is concerned. Three bloody incidents there this month have seriously undermined the image of Uzbekistan as a haven of stability in a restless region.

At least six people have died, one of them a deputy head of the local traffic police [GAI]. Other victims have been a local official and his wife, murdered in their home, and three policemen, killed in a battle with unidentified gunmen on Wednesday. Police have reportedly arrested hundreds of people linked to the city's mosques.

After his rough reception in 1992 Mr Karimov seemed largely to have stifled the emergence of religious and political opposition in the Namangan region. But now and again disturbing reports did emerge. In October 1996, for instance, it was reported that the local vice-governor, Mr Namatkulov, was murdered at his home by a group of masked men. Then in February this year, two policemen tried to arrest a former imam, Abduvali Yuldashev, but he apparently shot them dead and escaped. Each of these incidents was followed by a wave of arrests. So the recent violence is not entirely new, but it marks a serious escalation. Uzbek emigres say that there is no well-organised opposition, political or religious, in Namangan. But there does seem to be a minority of young men, inspired by a mixture of political discontent and religious feeling, who are prepared to defy the authorities - and in some cases take up arms.

The big question is: will the nervous response of the authorities - the mass arrests and continuing political suppression of all opposition - eradicate the problem? Or will it only make matters worse?