About Uzbekistan and the Hizb: I personally know a few Hizb-Ut-Tahrir activists. They are Islamic radicals. However, where they differ from the mainstream of radical Islam, is in their dedication to peace. There is no question, as Stratfor has said, that Karimov will use these attacks to ratchet up the pressure on Hizb.

"[T]he government of Uzbek President Islam Karimov will use them as an excuse to target radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has a significant following in the country," writes Stratfor.

While I have some serious qualms with much of Stratfor's more recent analyses (more on that another time) I think this is spot on. I would add that it is also quite dumb of Karimov to do so. The country isn't quite at the boiling point (although the Ferghana may be), but steam is starting to emerge from the kettle. And cracking down on a peaceful organization is just, well, dumb. But they are a threat to Karimov, peaceful as it were, but a threat nonetheless.

Everything seems to have started last night in Bukhara, a place I know well.A bomb-maker got careless and it seems the plot started to unravel. Other militants in the cell probably panicked and decided it was time for the operation to proceed. A few cell members went to the Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent and then blew up a few Uzbek militsa members. The majority of the casualties were in an explosion, overnight, in Bukhara. (I emailed my half-Cuban, half-Uzbek buddy there a little while ago. I hope he is ok.) Oy--seems there were multiple explosions in Bukhara.

The attacks in Tashkent have all the hallmarks of an al Qaeda affiliate: simultaneous, multiple attacks, some of which are suicide attacks. I can’t stress enough how uncharacteristic it is for Uzbeks to blow themselves up. They didn’t resort to these kinds of actions in ’97 or ’99.

That being said, I'm pretty convinced this is, if not al Qaeda sponsored, at least al Qaeda inspired. Another drip in the cascade of global counter-attacks due in the next few months.

This summer might be bad.

UPDATE: This is a great summary by Eurasianet.org.