Friday, May 13, 2005

Andijan - is it over?

Thanks to Nathan for pointing out the Centrasia.ru site. Here's their latest on the situation (translated by me):

The storm of Andijan is over. There is no one on the streets and rain is pouring down.
13.05.2005, 18:15 [MSK?]
According to local residents, the storm of the local administration building in Andijan took nearly an hour. Several loud explosions were heard from the direction of the regional hokimiyat. Then a downpour began and now there are no soldiers or locals outside. Downtown one can hear sporadic machine-gun fire. It is not currently clear what is happening in the administration building. Andijan continues to be under an information blockade. It is practically impossible to reach anyone in the city by telephone.
If you do read Russian, check out the comments below this article. Some of them are quite incendiary.

By the way, note that RIA Novosti has a rather different take on the situation - that the protesters dispersed because of the rainstorm, the hostages are not yet freed, and gunfire continues to be heard. So presumably the standoff continues.

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