Foreign Correspondence

[CoalTrain]

Bloodshed breaks out in Uzbekistan
Friday, May 13, 2005 Posted: 0713 GMT (1513 HKT)

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/13/uzbekistan.violence/

(CNN) -- Gun battles, explosions and a prison break in eastern Uzbekistan has prompted the U.S. Embassy in the capital Tashkent to warn Americans to be on alert.

A failed suicide bombing at the Israeli Embassy in Tashkent -- blamed on radical Islamic insurgents -- was averted after the suicide bomber was shot before he could detonate his bomb, according to the U.S. Embassy.

The attempted bombing followed by two days a U.S. Embassy warning that it had information terrorists were planning attacks against U.S. and western interests in Uzbekistan.

The Israeli and U.S. embassies in Tashkent were targets of bombings that killed three people and wounded several last July. The Jihad Group in Uzbekistan posted a claim of responsibility for those attacks on an Islamic Web site linked to al Qaeda.

The U.S. Embassy also confirmed reports of gunfire, explosions and the storming of a prison in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan.

Initial reports from there said insurgents ambushed prison guards and opened the gates, freeing as many as 2,000 prisoners into the city's streets.

Clashes between insurgents and Uzbek soldiers followed the prison attack, sources in Andijan said.

Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, allowed hundreds of U.S. troops to use a base near the Afghan border after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.