Leader ‘using extremist threat to crush opposition’

THE violence that has ripped through Andijan city in Uzbekistan is only the latest chapter in the troubled history of the former Soviet republic.

But the shooting of hundreds of protesters who had stormed a prison is the worst incident since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The country’s president Islam Karimov blamed the unrest on criminals and Islamic radicals linked to the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir movement. However, critics said he was using the threat of extremism as a cover to crush opposition.