UZBEKISTAN - The Political Perspective.

The fate of Uzbekistan lies in the hands of its dictator, President Islam Karimov, who is believed to be seriously ill. The US, which backs his regime for having given American forces key base facilities immediately after 9/11, has a warrant out for the arrest of his rich daughter, Gulnora Karimova. This was issued in July 2003 by a judge in New Jersey for having defied his court's order to return her two children to their father, Mansur Maqsudi - scion on a prominent Uzbek-Afghan family residing in New Jersey (see who's who in DT No. 17).

Karimov's record has disappointed the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other multilateral institutions which had once hoped that he will institute socio-economic and political reforms. It was precisely for this purpose that EBRD decided in 2000 to convene the 2003 annual meeting of the bank in Tashkent on May 4 last year.

In the event, Karimov's opening speech on that day fell far short of what EBRD's President, Jean Lemierre, had sought.

What was said in that speech - generalities about the rule of law, voluntary organisations, democratic values and other laudable things, but not a word about torture in his prisons - played out before hundreds of officials, business people and journalists from about 60 countries and served to highlight the risks of turning a public event into a benchmark for reforms. Instead of condemning torture, the Uzbek leader exposed the differences between the West and Central Asia over the importance of human rights.

It is widely expected that, once Karimov is no longer in control, Uzbekistan will undergo a long cycle of violence. This nation of more than 25 million people of diverse ethnicities - after many decades of tight central control, first from Moscow or later from Tashkent - would plunge into civil war which may lead to its dismemberment.

A sign of the underlying dangers came on July 30, 2004, when co-ordinated bomb attacks struck the perimetres of the US and Israeli Embassies in Tashkent, killing five people including two suicide bombers and wounding several others. A third explosion in Tashkent detonated about the same time in the lobby of Uzbekistan's General Prosecutor's office, with the suicide bomber killed.

The suicide blasts, carrying potent symbolism, struck at three governments that co-operated closely against Muslim militancy. They occurred at the end of the first week of the trial of 15 Uzbeks accused of participating in rifle and suicide bomb attacks against the government earlier this year and of links to Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda. Nearly 50 people died in those attacks, according to the Uzbek government.

The July bombs, which showed signs of careful co-ordination by striking targets scattered in a large city, were another worrisome sign of a lingering insurgency in a country that has kept intense pressure on its Muslim populace. They also differed from past attacks in that, instead of striking symbols of Uzbek authority, they displayed a fresh willingness among the attackers to seek foreign targets.

The bomb at the Israeli Embassy exploded near the entrance to the compound, killing two Uzbek security officers. News reports said the blast had been triggered by a man wearing an explosive vest. There is a significant Jewish population in Uzbekistan.

The US Embassy in Tashkent has long been identified as vulnerable. It sits near the curb on a busy city thoroughfare, and has been slated by the State Department for replacement with a modern and safer compound. Groundbreaking on the new embassy had already occurred. As an interim measure, the embassy's walls and fencing - which had previously been a simple iron fence that would stop neither shrapnel nor bullets - were upgraded in the autumn of 2001.

Almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks in the US, Uzbekistan gave the Pentagon access to an abandoned Soviet air base near its border with Afghanistan for use in military operations against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But the alliance with the US has recently shown signs of strain. Earlier in July Washington announced it was cutting $18m in military and economic aid to Tashkent because of what Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, described as "lack of progress on democratic reform".

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), associated with Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bombings in a statement posted on a website. The IMU maintains bases in the fertile Fergana valley and has been more active since 9/11.

Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov on April 9 said the Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov terrorists behind the violence in Tashkent and elsewhere in March were trained by Arab instructors who also taught Al-Qaeda fighters. He said the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), associated with and financed by Wahhabi groups including Al-Qaeda, was influenced by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist Sunni movement which seeks to revive the Caliphate, and the Islamic Movement of Turkestan. The latter movement is believed to have emerged from the remains of an Uzbek group decimated in US-led anti-terror operations in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

The spring attacks, begun on March 28, were the first major violence since Uzbekistan became a key US ally. Kadyrov said 45 people were under arrest and another nine under investigation. The groups behind the attacks were created in 2000 in Tashkent and the surrounding region, as well as in the central Bukhara province. He said they were controlled and co-ordinated by a single leader, known as an "Amir Al-Mu'mineen" (prince of the faithful), who was located outside Uzbekistan and had "ties with international terrorist groups" which helped fund and train them.

The IMU aims to set up an Islamic state in the Fergana valley, a fertile area where Uzbekistan, Kyrghyzstan and Tadjikistan meet. Its previous leader, Juma Namangani who was close to Bin Laden and died during the US-led war in Afghanistan in November 2001, was blamed for a series of bomb attacks in Tashkent in February 1999, where were seen as an attempt to assassinate President Karimov. He was sentenced to death in absentia in November 2000.