Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov claimed today that authorities had tried to negotiate a peaceful end to street protests, but that troops were forced to fire into demonstrators to put down an uprising.

Some 1,000 angry protesters gathered at the site of earlier violence in this Uzbek city Andijan today, placing six bodies on display among the dozens that witnesses said were killed in earlier fighting in the heart of Central Asia.

An armed crowd freed inmates from a prison in an eastern Uzbekistan city as thousands of activists took to the streets today to protest the trial of 23 Islamic businessmen on extremism charges while security forces fired into the air, witnesses said.

Outrage over the terror trial of 23 Muslims exploded into broader unrest in eastern Uzbekistan today when armed protesters stormed a jail to free the defendants and thousands of people swarmed the streets, clashing with police.

26 people, including three Britons, were jailed for five years in Cairo today on charges of trying to revive an outlawed Islamic group.