The respected New York-based international rights watchdog dismissed Karimov's claims on blaming “Islamic extremists” for the violence.

Karimov, who has ruled the republic with an iron fist since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, denied troops were given the order to fire on the crowd.

The HRW said his claim “raises concern that, following a pattern established over several years, the Uzbek government will proceed to suppress peaceful religious dissidents and political opponents, including human rights defenders, labeling them 'Islamic extremists'”.

The watchdog said the remarks of 67-year-old Karimov, considered one of the most autocratic leaders in ex-Soviet Central Asia, boded ominously in a country whose rights groups have for years accused the government of systematically using torture in its police stations and prisons.

“The government of Uzbekistan has severely limited avenues for civic participation and the peaceful expression of dissent. There are no independent media, the government has refused to register opposition political parties and there are tight restrictions on civil society groups and non-governmental organizations.”

Meanwhile, London’s former ambassador to the Central Asian country said his country and the US share in the blame for the deadly unrest in Uzbekistan because of their support for the authoritarian regime there.

“The Americans and British wouldn't do anything to help democracy in Uzbekistan,” Craig Murray told the Independent on Sunday.

“We didn't provide support for those who were trying to develop democratic opposition, and that includes these people” in the city of Andijan, he said.

Murray, who was suspended from his post over his outspoken opposition to Karimov's rule, has accused the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair of using information extracted under torture by Karimov's regime as anti-terror intelligence.

He said that before leaving his post last year, he had met democracy activists in Andijan and tried unsuccessfully to secure British government funding for them.

“The Americans were making a distinction between human rights training, which they were happy to do, and pro-democracy training, which they weren't,” Murray said of US democracy-building efforts in Uzbekistan.

Atef Motamed, an Egyptian expert in Central Asian affairs, told IslamOnline.net earlier that Karimov and the Bush administration “are on good terms as he supported the US invasion of Afghanistan and helped the Americans chase down Al-Qaeda operatives.”

Although human rights groups have routinely charged Karimov's government with using systematic torture in prisons and police stations, the US has been mild in its criticism as Uzbekistan houses one of the major American military bases in the region.

Russia, fearful of Islamists, also supports Karimov. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to back Karimov's version of events, saying the Andijan protests appeared pre-planned and included regional extremist groups.

A wife mourns her slain husband. (Reuters)

Two days after the uprising, blood and body parts, hastily sprinkled with soil, still lay on the pavements, streets, and gutters in the center of Andijan, a leafy town of 300,000 people.

As families of the victims started burying their dead, survivors of the army clampdown spoke about how soldiers were ordered to shoot them in cold blood.

Witnesses further revealed a bloody mayhem in which women and children were gunned down.

“They shot at us like rabbits,” a boy in his late teens told Reuters Sunday, recalling the horror of troops rampaging through Andijan on Friday.

Others said that when soldiers started removing bodies, a handful of wounded tried to get away but were shot dead on the spot.

“Those wounded who tried to get away were finished with single shots from a Kalashnikov rifle,” said one witness, a businessman. “Three or four soldiers were assigned to killing the wounded.”

Another witness, a 42-year-old driver, said he saw soldiers later loading corpses onto trucks and buses.

“At about 5:00 a.m. (on Saturday) the dead women and children were the first to be removed from the street,” he said. “I could not count all the dead, there were literally hundreds.”

“There were many bodies lying on top of each other, and smashed brains on the pavement.”

Soldiers moved among “hundreds” of bodies and finished off some of the wounded with a single bullet, said one witness to Friday's killings outside School No. 15.

The facade of the two-storey school was pockmarked with at least 20 bullet holes with pools of wet blood mixed with water and dirt could be seen in the blocked open drains.

In another development, Kyrgyzstan opened a camp for refugees fleeing from its western neighbor Uzbekistan.

“A refugee camp has been put in place in the region of Jalal-Abad to offer indispensable aid to Uzbek citizens,” said the press office for Kyrgyzstan's emergencies ministry.

The camp already houses some 900 people, many of them injured, who crossed the border after the ferocious military clampdown.

“Thirteen among them have bullet wounds,” Samat Toimatov, a Kyrgyz health ministry official, told AFP.

Some 3,000 Uzbeks were reported to have massed on the border with Kyrgyzstan, according to Kyrgyz border guards.