Patterns of Global Terrorism 1999 - Uzbekistan

On 16 February five coordinated car bombs targeted at Uzbekistani Government facilities exploded within a two-hour period in downtown Tashkent, killing 16 persons and wounding more than 100 others. Such an attack was unprecedented in a former Soviet republic. Uzbekistani officials feared the attacks were aimed at assassinating President Islom Karimov and suspected the IMU, some of whose members had opposed the Karimov regime for many years. By summer the government had arrested or questioned hundreds of suspects about their possible involvement in the bombings. Ultimately the government condemned 11 suspects to death and sentenced more than 120 others to prison terms.

The IMU threat to Uzbekistan continued, however, with the group's incursion into Kyrgyzstan in August. Although the IMU militants did not attack Uzbekistani soil or personnel at the time, they tried to achieve a foothold in Uzbekistan for future IMU action. The militants in Kyrgyzstan also publicly declared jihad against the Uzbekistani Government on 3 September.

In November a group of Uzbekistani forest rangers encountered a group of IMU members in a mountainous region approximately 80 kilometers east of Tashkent. Initially reported to be bandits, the IMU militants killed four foresters and three Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) police. An extensive MVD search-and-destroy operation resulted in the death of 15 suspected insurgents and three additional MVD special forces officers. During a press conference, the Minister of the Interior identified some of the insurgents as IMU members who had taken hostages in Kyrgyzstan in August.