JAN. 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz police said they had arrested three Kazakhs in Bishkek on suspicion of plotting to bomb a business centre. This is the first time that Kazakhs have been directly implicated in the growing violence in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 24, published on Jan. 24 2011)
JAN. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan plans to name a mountain after Russian PM Vladimir Putin. The chosen mountain will be over 4,500m high and located in the Tian Shan range on the border with China near Mount Boris Yeltsin and Mount Lenin. In December 2010, Russia pledged $200m in aid to Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
JAN. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Since 2009 the Kyrgyz security forces have reported a rise in the number of gun battles they have fought with suspected Islamic extremists.
These shootouts and bomb attacks had mainly been confined to Kyrgyzstan’s poorer south.
But the gun attack that killed three policemen in Bishkek on Jan. 4 appears to add to recent insurgent attacks in the Kyrgyz capital which hosts a major US airbase and is only a few hours drive from Almaty in Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s financial centre. Certainly, the authorities were quick to blame Islamic extremists for the attack.
And the shootout follows two earlier attacks in Bishkek — a failed car bomb outside police headquarters on Dec. 25 and a bomb that exploded in the centre of the city on Nov. 30 and injured several people, days before the arrival of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Kyrgyz authorities often blame the attacks on the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which has close links with al-Qaeda. The initial NATO surge into Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 heavily damaged the IMU but over the last couple of years it has grown in strength.
The IMU and other Islamic radical groups have increased attacks in Central Asia over the last couple of years mainly attacking security forces in Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan.
With the latest attacks in Bishkek this violence appears to be creeping towards the heart of Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
JAN. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gunmen killed three policemen during a routine document inspection in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. The security forces blamed Islamic extremists for the attack and the following day tracked down suspected gunmen to a house outside Bishkek. Two rebels and another policeman died in a gunfight at the house.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
DEC. 25 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Kyrgyzstan said they had foiled a car bomb outside Bishkek’s police headquarters. Media quoted the head of the National Security Committee saying that nine Kyrgyz citizens, described as militant Islamists, had been detained in connection with the foiled bomb attack.
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(News report from Issue No. 21, published on Jan. 4 2011)
DEC. 15 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh jailed 5 more Uzbek men for murder during ethnic violence in June. Human rights groups have said that Uzbeks are being unfairly punished for the violence during which about 400 people, mainly Uzbeks, died.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 17 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three political parties in Kyrgyzstan formed a coalition government, the first under a new constitution that shifted power to parliament from the president. Almazbek Atambayev, leader of the Social Democrats and an ally of President Roza Otunbayeva, will become the prime minister and head of a coalition with Respublika and Ata Zhurt.
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(News report from Issue No. 20, published on Dec. 20 2010)
DEC. 8 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan established a new government-run company to supply fuel to the US airbase outside Bishkek. An opaque firm
registered in Gibraltar with links to the son of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev had previous controlled lucrative contracts to supply fuel to the base, which is vital to NATO operations in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 19, published on Dec. 13 2010)
DEC. 1 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the
United States delegation to the OSCE summit in Kazakhstan and then visited Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan before heading off to Bahrain. In Tashkent, Ms Clinton said Uzbekistan needed to improve its human rights record.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)
DEC. 3 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s new Parliament narrowly failed to elect Omurbek Tekebayev, head of the Ata Meken party, as its speaker. The loss triggered the collapse of a three-party coalition which had hoped to form a new government.
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(News report from Issue No. 18, published on Dec. 6 2010)