TASHKENT, May 26 (RIA Novosti) - A police officer and suicide bomber died and several people were injured in two separate attacks in the Andijan province, near the Kyrgyz border, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office said on Tuesday.
He said a police officer was injured when two-three gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in Khanabad in the early hours Tuesday. In a separate attack a suicide bomber blew himself up killing a police officer in nearby Andijan in the afternoon.
A source in the country's prosecutor general's office said Uzbek law enforcers are currently conducting special operations to try and trace those responsible for the attacks.
"According to preliminary information a group of militants crossed into Uzbek territory from neighboring Kyrgyzstan," the source said.
Eyewitness reports of explosions and gunfire around Khanabad emerged from Kyrgyzstan early on Tuesday morning after media said the Uzbek authorities were conducting a military crackdown.
Media also reported that Uzbek authorities had blocked mobile communications in a number of regions around Khanabad.
"In Khanabad and also in adjacent regions mobile communications are not operating. They say that cell operators have been blocked on the orders of the local authorities," a source said, adding that people living along the border with Kyrgyzstan could not contact their relatives in Khanabad.
Uzbek media outlets contacted by RIA Novosti reported earlier that the situation was calm in Andijan, the site of a notorious army crackdown on protests in 2005.
The incident, in which several hundred people were shot dead by troops, sparked international criticism of the Uzbek government, and severely damaged relations with several former allies.
Kyrgyzstan shut its border with Uzbekistan on Monday, after shots were heard coming from Andijan and reports from the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry of a shootout in Khanabad.
