As Ministry of Interior officials say, the armed robbery was planned in detail. At 6.05 a.m. a group of young men, aged 20-25, rushed into the Jalal-Abad city police department with guns. Threatening the policemen, they forced them to give up their arms. Taken aback, the policemen did not show strong resistance. Later, they were taken to hospital with serious injuries. At 6.30 a.m., a parallel incident just like this one took place in the Jalal-Abad regional police department.

The criminals captured altogether 35 weapons, including 21 Kalashnikov guns, 9 Makarov and 3 Stechkin pistols, one Dragunov sniper rifle, and a machine gun. They left in a police car parked on the regional police department’s yard. On a highway, the offenders hijacked a Volga car and made their way towards the southern Aksy district.

Police chased the gang members until they rammed the Volga in a gorge near Kyzyl-Jar village, and ran it into a flock of sheep. The suspects surrounded by police started shooting from inside their car, but finally gave up after being warned that they would otherwise be killed.

The other group of attackers in a Zhiguli car also fled towards the Aksy district. Chased by police, they got out of control and ran into a river. The suspects had to leave the car and to run into the mountains. At night, the gorge where they hid was blocked by two armored troop carriers and an assault detachment. Three men were detained.

The Ministry of Interior leadership connects the incident neither with religious extremist organizations like Uzbekistan Islamic Movement or Hizb-ut-Tahrir, nor with the violent Aksy events of a year ago. As Joldoshbek Buzurmankulov, Internal Affairs Ministry press-service director, informed on a press conference on Friday, those who attacked the Jalal-Abad police departments belonged to southern criminal structures and had planned to organize mass disorders in south of the country by arming local people. “One of the assault purposes was to free the other members of the gang, particularly, the criminal authority called Krasavchik, from an isolator cell in the city police department,” IAM official said, “But thanks to the guard, who barricaded the door to the cell, the offenders could not get in.”

Asked why law enforcement representatives were overrun so easily, Buzurmankulov said, “Police departments are always open to people, unlike military units. Besides, the leader of the attackers, Adyl Karimov, had worked in that very city police department earlier, and knew the person who let him in.” Adyl Karimov is the only one of the attackers who is still free and armed.

The Jalal-Abad regional public prosecutor has instituted legal proceedings on the incident. The investigating group includes the most skilled investigators of the district. All schools in the region are temporarily closed, and hospitals are under intensified guard.

The Jalal-Abad event prompted Uzbek president Islam Karimov to sign a special document called “Measures of providing security on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan bordering with Jalal-Abad region of the Kyrgyz Republic”, on May 15. A special operative group in the Uzbek Internal Affairs Ministry was formed, which has already arrived in the boundary zone. Frontier guards and customs officials have been ordered to intensify control in checkpoints. In districts bordering with Kyrgyzstan, a strict passport regime has been proclaimed. These measures are directed to prevent the penetration of armed criminal formations into Uzbekistan.

The attack on two Kyrgyz police departments is obviously sensational. There have been cases when small district departments were attacked, for instance during a market revolt in 1967, and during the Osh events in 1990. Last year in March, in Aksy, a crowd held a village police department under siege. But regional police departments have never been assaulted.

Kyrgyz police has redoubled its vigilance. Some sources from MOI predict dismissals of law enforcement officials for serious omissions in their job. Specialists say that this may not be the best way to solve the problem, since the law enforcement system of the country, as a whole, needs to be reformed.