by Muhammad Ismail
TASHKENT, July 31 (AFP) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov on Saturday blamed followers of a banned Islamist movement for this weekend's suicide bomb attacks despite the group's public rejection of violence.
Karimov said Hizb ut-Tahrir must bear primary responsibility both for Friday's blasts at the Israeli and US embassies and the general prosecutor's office that killed at least three and a wave of violence in March that left 47 dead.
"The same group carried out the March explosions as yesterday's explosions and they base their ideas on Hizb ut-Tahrir's teaching... Hizb ut-Tahrir made the biggest contribution to that terror," Karimov told public television.
Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks the establishment of an Islamic state in Central Asia.
All three people killed in the latest attacks in the Uzbek capital were members of the Uzbek security forces who had been guarding the buildings, officials said.
Eight other people were injured in the blasts -- the first such attacks at foreign embassies in Uzbekistan since it broke from Moscow in 1991.
US officials said that none of their staff were hurt.
Many analysts and rights defenders have insisted that they see no direct link between Hizb ut-Tahrir and recent violence in Uzbekistan, as the group has publicly rejected the use of violence.
They say that Karimov's leadership -- widely criticised for stamping on all opposition, secular or religious -- wants the West to take a tougher line on Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is legal in most Western countries although Germany has imposed a ban due to the group's anti-Semitism.
Earlier a prominent Uzbek human rights defender expressed doubts about an Islamic internet site -- www.islamic-minbar.com -- that had published claims of responsibility by both Hizb ut-Tahrir and another group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), that has launched incursions across the region in the past.
"I suspect the claim by Hizb ut-Tahrir... might be a provocation. I have never seen any proof that Hizb ut-Tahrir used violent means, this is not their ideology," said Surat Ikramov, head of the Independent Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan.
Russian news agencies said that a number of arrests had been made.
Police were stopping and searching cars across Tashkent and the embassies -- smoke-damaged but otherwise intact -- had been reinforced by dozens of Uzbek troops.
On Saturday US Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned the latest attacks.
"We cannot in any way excuse this kind of action -- (Uzbekistan has been) a very good partner with the United States in the global war against terrorism," Powell told journalists during a visit to Bosnia.
Analysts have said Friday's explosions appeared timed to highlight the ongoing trial of 15 people over the March attacks, a hearing that has prompted rights defenders to allege that the defendants had been tortured into pleading guilty.
In 2002 Uzbekistan's authorities were accused by a United Nations rapporteur of countenancing "systematic" torture. Rights defenders estimate the number of religious and political prisoners in the country at around 6,500.
This former Soviet republic is a key Central Asian ally in Washington's anti-terrorism campaign, hosting a major airbase used for US-led operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.