On August 29, shots rang out in a residential house near the Quqcha mosque in the old part of Uzbekistan’s capital. The shooting was between supposed terrorists and state security and defense forces. On September 3, the media service of the Prosecutor General of Uzbekistan posted a message with details of the clash. It stated that as a result of the operation, three members of a terrorist group, including their leader Shavkat Mahmudov, were eliminated. The group supposedly had completed training abroad with foreign terrorist organizations. Moreover, it was stated that the group was suspected of several crimes committed in Tashkent lately. Even though a shooting in the capital is not an ordinary incident, it still did not receive wide coverage by the local mass media. Thus, several speculations are circulating in local media attempting to shed light on what happened in Tashkent.

The official version of what happened on August 29 states that Uzbek security and defense forces conducted a special operation to eliminate armed gunmen. Two armed men were detected in an apartment in a two-floor building in a residential area. In order to avoid bloodshed they were offered to surrender, however they resisted security agents and attempted to break through the cordon. During the exchange of fire, the gunmen were eliminated. Furthermore, an unknown number of militants were detained during the same operation and later reportedly confessed they had trained abroad.

Some of the most ambiguous aspects of the incident include the exact amount of those killed and injured in the course of the shootings; the origin and the group affiliations of the gunmen; and the crimes that the gunmen supposedly had committed in Tashkent.

It is still unclear how many people were killed in the incident. In the first reports of the incident, the elimination of only two terrorists was mentioned. Later, however, three terrorists appeared to have been shot. Besides the two gunmen, an elderly woman in whose apartment the gunmen were found was accidentally injured. She died without receiving any medical assistance. Since the woman’s relationship to the gunmen remains to be established, for now the official version suggests that two terrorists were shot dead near the house where the operation took place and the third one committed suicide by jumping from the bridge on “Druzhba Narodov” street. The statement of the Prosecutor General provides no information about casualties among the policemen and members of the security and defense forces. Tashkent human rights activist Surat Ikramov suggests, however, that two or four policemen with bullet wounds were delivered to the First City Hospital located nearby. Radio Liberty sources on site reported that three injured policemen were delivered to the Hospital on that day.

Very little is known about the origin and affiliations of the terrorists. According to residents of the area where the shootings took place, these people did not reside in their mahalla, and were natives of Qashqadariyo region. Other unofficial sources suggest that the two gunmen were a father and a son, as one of them was older and another younger. Even though the official statement of the Prosecutor General suggests that the gunmen were terrorists and had been trained abroad, there is still no further information or details concerning their affiliation to terrorist organizations.

An additional aspect of the incident that still begs further detail concerns the crimes for which the gunmen are suspected. The official statement of the Prosecutor General stated that the group committed a range of assassinations and attempted murders on citizens of Uzbekistan. Based on this statement, it is possible to speculate on the suspected murders. In fact, several crimes had been committed in the capital lately. For instance, in July Abror Abrorov, an assistant at the Kukeldash mosque, was murdered; on July 31, a knife attack on Anvar-qori Tursunov, the chief Imam at the same Mosque, took place; and on August 9, Hasan Asadov, an Interior Ministry anti-terrorism and anti-corruption officer, was shot. Again, it is not clear whether the gunmen are suspected for any of these crimes, or if there are others unknown to the wider public.

As reported by the Prosecutor General, the other members of the group are currently captured and being interrogated. Perhaps in the course of these procedures more will be revealed about the incident and everyone involved. For now, however, the shootings in Tashkent manifest yet another demonstration of the power and military equipment of Uzbekistan’s law enforcement bodies. In light of the persistent information vacuum, and especially in cases like the present one, the belief that the state is trying to create an illusion of a terrorist threat is pervasive.