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WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States plans to add the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) to its running list of foreign terrorist organizations, the State Department announced Friday. The group "has threatened the lives of civilians and regional security and undermined the rule of law," said department spokesman Richard Boucher. The IMU is accused of abducting four U.S. mountain climbers who were held hostage last month before escaping. Last year, the group reportedly abducted a group of Japanese geologists, and played a role in a bombing in the capital, Tashkent, that killed 16 people. The inclusion of a group on the list of foreign terrorist organizations forbids it access to any type of assistance - financial or otherwise - from the United States, and it also enables Washington to freeze its assets within U.S. jurisdictions. The IMU will officially join the ranks of 28 other U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations in seven days. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Tashkent in April on a trip to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in an effort to bolster governments in the region that are facing threats of destabilization. Albright "recognized that governments' need to be able to defend their territorial integrity, but she also urged the Uzbek government and others to do that in a way that doesn't result in unnecessary casualties or violence," Boucher said last month regarding Albright's visit. |
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