Army 'kills 200' in second Uzbek city as thousands head for border

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Authorities in Uzbekistan have lost control of a key border town in the eastern Ferghana valley, despite a brutal clampdown that has so far claimed the lives of an estimated 700 people. If reports of further killings can be confirmed the violence would be the most brutal of its kind in Asia since China gunned down hundreds of democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The hardline government of Islam Karimov, an ally of London and Washington in the "war on terror", has dispatched an armoured force into the restive area in the east of the country after mass arrests of alleged radical Islamists sparked what appeared to be a popular uprising. Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov, head of Appeal, a local human rights advocacy group, said troops had killed about 200 demonstrators on Saturday in Pakhtabad, just outside the city of Andijan, where witnesses saw security forces kill up to 500 civilians the previous night.