"...The government of Uzbekistan has sent tanks and troops to its eastern border region after a series of armed attacks in the city of Khanabad. And that could troubling implications for the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. In brief: Nezavisimaya Gazeta quotes Uzbekistan’s chief prosecutor as saying “armed extremists” had attempted to storm a local police station (Uzbekistan’s police are controlled by the internal ministry); the BBC, citing Uzbekistan’s state television network, says that a suicide bomber had struck in the eastern city of Andijan, killing a police officer and wounding several others.
Andijan, as you’ll recall, was the scene of a rather gruesome crackdown by Uzbek security forces four years ago. The Andijan incident led to a rift with the United States, but ties between Washington and Tashkent have quietly been repaired over the past few months.
Here’s the why: Uzbekistan offers a crucial alternative supply route to Afghanistan. Pakistan’s instability is extremely worrying to U.S. commanders, and the U.S. government recently struck a back-door deal to use a South Korean-funded free trade zone in Navoi as a logistics base for supplying U.S. forces.....
But it’s also in everyone’s interest that Uzbekistan doesn’t go the way of Pakistan. The regime of Uzbek President Islam Karimov is one of the most repressive in the region (first prize, however, still goes to Turkmenistan). The recent violence in Uzbekistan was not around Navoi: The incidents occured in the Ferghana region, which has been a magnet for Islamic extremists. But while Karimov’s been able to keep a lid on unrest, in the longer term there’s concern that his heavy-handed approach may ultimately lead to more violence."
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