Clashes erupt between Kyrgyzstan’s police and anti-government protesters in capital

Kyrgyz opposition clashes with police in capital

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Clashes have broken out at an anti-government demonstration in Kyrgystan’s capital, with protesters setting fire to cars and police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

Protesters chased police into a five-story building and beat some of them.

The opposition Wednesday is protesting rising energy prices and the arrest of two opposition leaders over the past two days. On Tuesday, protesters stormed a provincial government office in the town of Talas and held a regional governor hostage, sparking clashes with police that the prime minister said left 85 officers injured and 15 missing.

The unrest is now threatening to spread across the former Soviet republic in Central Asia.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — The Kyrgyz government arrested another opposition leader and deployed busloads of riot police in the capital Wednesday as unrest threatened to spread across the Central Asian nation.

The opposition has vowed to go ahead with anti-government rallies, a day after protesters angry over rising energy prices stormed a government office and held a regional governor hostage, sparking fierce clashes with police.

Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov told reporters Wednesday that the regional government in the town of Talas is back at work and police have the situation under control. He said 85 officers were injured in Tuesday’s clashes, 19 of whom were hospitalized, while 15 were unaccounted for.

The crowds, however, were regrouping in Talas, a town of 30,000.

In Bishkek, the capital, busloads of riot police were arriving at the headquarters of the opposition Social-Democrat Party, one of the protest sites.

The opposition is vowing to go ahead with the rallies, even though most of its leaders have now been detained.

Security forces on Tuesday stormed the home of Almazbek Atambayev, the country’s most popular opposition politician and a former presidential candidate, who had barricaded himself inside.

Another opposition leader, Temir Sariyev, was detained early Wednesday as he got off a flight from Moscow.

Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous and impoverished former Soviet republic of 5 million people, hosts a U.S. air base that supports military operations in neighboring Afghanistan and serves as an important transit point for coalition troops and supplies.

The government accused the opposition of provoking Tuesday’s violence.

“What kind of opposition is this? They are just bandits,” Usenov said.

Hundreds of protesters overran the government building Tuesday on the main square of Talas. Baton-wielding police initially dispersed the demonstrators, but protesters fought through tear gas and flash grenades to regroup, burning police cars and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails.

Tuesday’s clashes began after the demonstrators assembled on the central square in Talas armed with rocks and flammable liquids, residents told The Associated Press by telephone. Some of the protesters gathered at the local police station and threw Molotov cocktails at portraits of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

Special forces stormed the square and government office, freeing a regional governor who had been taken hostage by the demonstrators. But the forces quickly lost control as the crowd swelled. Toward nightfall the protesters thinned out.

Since coming to power on a wave of street protests in 2005, Bakiyev has ensured a measure of stability, but many observers say he has done so at the expense of democratic standards.

Over the past two years, Kyrgyz authorities have clamped down on free media, and opposition activists say they have routinely been subjected to physical intimidation and targeted by politically motivated criminal investigations.

Anti-government forces have been in disarray until recently, but widespread anger over soaring utility bills has galvanized the fractious opposition.

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Associated Press Writer Leila Saralayeva contributed to this report.