October 23, 2001

TASHKENT, Oct 23 (AFP) -

Few people in Uzbekistan, the authoritarian Muslim republic bordering Afghanistan, dare to speak out in public against the presence of US troops here, but those who do condemn it as an attack against all of Islam.

"There is a Christian crusade going on against Muslims. There will be a war against this crusade, a Third World War in which all the Western world will be destroyed. Allah is witness to this," said Muslim activist Muhtabar Akhmedova.

Anti-American sentiment is a serious concern as this former Soviet republic is lined up for use as a key staging post if and when the United States launches a major ground operation against Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

An advance US combat force of 1,000 troops is already stationed in the republic, with Uzbekistan saying in a joint statement with the US State Department that the two sides have "decided to establish a qualitatively new relationship based on long-term commitment."

In an often ruthless campaign waged since the early 1990s, Uzbek President Islam Karimov has cracked down on Islamic fundamentalism, imprisoning hundreds of men and forcing thousands to seek refuge in neighbouring Tajikistan, or in Taliban-held Afghanistan.

However, their wives, mothers and sisters remain. As women in this traditional society, they can be harassed by police but are largely immune from imprisonment. They are adamant that US President George W. Bush, and not the Taliban, is the real enemy.

"Bush is the number one terrorist in the world," said Akhmedova, speaking at her home next to a mosque in a suburb of Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. "It is Bush himself who is guilty," she went on.

She added: "If Bush is terrorist number one, then Karimov is terrorist number two. He let the Americans use our bases so they could annihilate Muslims. He no longer even trusts his own executioners so now he is using the United States to do the work for him instead."

Until September 11, said Akhmedova, most people in Uzbekistan had never heard of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born multi-millionaire whose al-Qaeda group is accused of carrying out the attacks on US cities. Now, she added, he is hero-worshipped by many Muslims here.

Another woman, Farida Iskhakova, said her 32-year-old son had been jailed for being a member of Khazbut-Tahrir, a traditionalist Islamic sect which has been singled out by Karimov's regime as a threat to national security.

She said she did not believe Karimov's claims -- designed to appease local Muslims uneasy about attacks on the Taliban -- that the US military would only use Uzbek military bases to ship humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

"I have been to Karshi (the Uzbek provincial town where US troops are stationed) myself and they are flying aircraft in constantly," said Iskhakova, 52, wearing a veil covering her head and part of her face. "How can that be humanitarian aid?" she asked.

"I think they want to destroy all Muslims," she added. "If they just wanted to find Osama bin Laden, then they could have done it by now. This is America after all. But why do these innocent people have to die? If there had been no bin Laden, they would have found someone else."

Despite their anger, neither woman expected there would be any anti-American protests in Uzbekistan of the kind seen in other parts of the Muslim world.

They said all the young men who might organize protests were either in jail, in hiding or abroad, and that they as women could achieve little against Karimov's authoritarian regime.

A group of about 10 Muslim women recently staged an anti-American demonstration in Tashkent, said Akhmedova. They were immediately rounded up by police and only released when they had signed declarations that they would not protest again.

"In France and Belgium, Muslims have gone out onto the streets but we cannot because there is no freedom here," Iskhakova said.

"The Taliban were our only hope, to be quite honest," said Akhmedova. "Our last hope rests on them and we hope that they can free us from the yoke of this (government) terrorism because there are practically no men left here," she went on.

"The United States will never be able to destroy the Muslim world and they will never be able to liquidate the Taliban," she added. "You can kill bin Laden but his idea, his spirit, will live on among his followers."

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