Play Video Reuters  – Kyrgyzstan to expel former leader

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AP – Kyrgyz men stand under a poster with the images of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Kyrgyz counterpart …

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Kyrgyzstan's interim leader told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday that her government will extend for a year the lease of a U.S. air base key to the war in Afghanistan, and guarantee the deposed president's safety if he steps down and leave the country.

The ousted ruler said he was willing to step down but he also wants immunity for his family and close circle as a condition to resign — an argument that could block a deal to transfer power and foment the turmoil gripping the Central Asian nation.

Roza Otunbayeva, the interim leader, told the AP that the agreement allowing the U.S. to use the Manas air base will be prolonged after the current one-year deal expires in July.

"It will be automatically extended for the next year," she said.

The U.S. base, at the capital's international airport, provides refueling flights for warplanes over Afghanistan and serves as a major transit hub for troops.

In the interview, Otunbayeva said her government is offering security guarantees for deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev if he steps down and leaves the country, but she wouldn't offer such immunity to his family.

"We will provide security guarantees which he's entitled to under the constitution," she said.

Bakiyev fled the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday after a rally against corruption, rising utility bills and deteriorating human rights exploded into police gunfire and chaos that left at least 83 people dead and sparked protesters to storm the government headquarters.

He told reporters in his home village in the south that he would resign and relinquish his claim on power if the interim authorities guarantee "my own security and the security of members of my family and those close to me."

Both the United States and Russia, which also has a military base in Kyrgyzstan, have watched the violence in the impoverished ex-Soviet Central Asian nation with concern.

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, said troop transports to and from Afghanistan were suspended last week at the Manas air base. Refueling flights have continued.

Major John Redfield told The Associated Press that flights resumed briefly Friday and a few hundred troops were flown back to the U.S. on Monday after being stuck at Manas by the shutdown. Other than that, flights to and from Afghanistan remain indefinitely suspended.

Russia has watched the U.S. military presence in what it considers its backyard with unease, and it had pushed Bakiyev's government to evict the U.S. military.

But after announcing last year that American forces would have to leave the Manas base, Kyrgyzstan agreed to allow them to stay after the U.S. raised the annual rent to about $63 million from $17 million.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call Otunbayeva last week after her appointment as the interim leader and offer help, prompting speculation that Moscow was jockeying for greater clout in Kyrgyzstan at the U.S. expense.

Otunbayeva said Tuesday that she expects the U.S. to wrap up its campaign in Afghanistan, which would remove the rationale for the U.S. base, but added that "it's not an issue yet."

She said that her government would look at the contracts for supplying fuel to the U.S. base, but wouldn't immediately say that they would seek their revision. The opposition has alleged that Bakiyev's entourage has profited from those contracts.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with Otunbayeva over the weekend, to offer humanitarian aid and discuss the importance of the U.S. air base. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake is to travel to Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday for talks including the base status.

Otunbayeva told the AP that her government expects to continue receiving about $47 million a year in U.S. financial assistance, adding that foreign aid is vital for shoring up democracy in the impoverished nation. She said that her government also expects Russia to provide some urgent aid.

Kyrgyzstan has remained on edge, and the interim government has issued threats that it will launch a special operation to seize Bakiyev — a move that the ousted leader has repeatedly insisted would end in bloodshed.

Bakiyev signaled his readiness to resign hours after rallying with about 5,000 supporters in an apparent test of how much support he could muster to resist the opposition authorities. The crowd that greeted Bakiyev was highly emotional, but there have been doubts about how much real backing he has and whether he commanded enough loyalty in the security forces to mount serious resistance.

In the minutes before Bakiyev addressed reporters Tuesday afternoon at his family compound in Teyit, a short drive from Jalal-Abad, around 20 machine gun-toting guards in camouflage uniforms emerged into the courtyard in an apparent gesture to demonstrate their readiness to thwart any attempt by security forces to launch a raid on the house.

Bakiyev says he is eager to hold negotiations to bring an end to the political crisis, but that he wouldn't go to the capital to hold them. The interim government "cannot secure the safety of my passage to Bishkek," he said.

When asked specifically Tuesday if the new authorities are willing to extend guarantees to Bakiyev's brother and son, the security chief in the interim government, Keneshbek Duishebayev, declined comment. Those men are among the Bakiyev relatives most often accused of reaping massive wealth through improper channels; complaints about corruption were a prime issue in the events that drove Bakiyev out of the capital.

Otunbayeva indicated that her government's patience with Bakiyev is running out.

"His stay in Kyrgyzstan is posing a problem for the nation's future," she told the AP. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to guarantee his security as people are demanding to bring him to justice."

Asked where Bakiyev might go, she said she didn't know but then added that Bakiyev would probably like to join his sons, who are currently in Latvia.

____

Posted by biginla at 7:27 PM BST

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by Maria Ogryzlo, BBC News Analyst, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

Published: April 10, 2010

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Filed at 5:14 p.m. ET

WARSAW, Poland  -- He died en route to the most sensitive mission possible -- a visit to the place that has driven a wedge between Poles and Russians for three generations.

The death of Lech Kaczynski, Poland's president and dozens of his high-level countrymen in a plane crash, and the purpose behind the journey, laid bare the deep divisions that remain between two nations still struggling to be more than uneasy neighbors who watch each other with skepticism and suspicion.

Saturday's planned visit to the Katyn forest was somber in purpose but underscored his suspicious eye of the massive neighbor and former taskmaster to the east. The memorial service was to mark the 70th anniversary of the killing of thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviet secret security during World War II.

Katyn. The site of the massacre of Polish military officers, priests, shopkeepers. Men shot in the back of the head by Josef Stalin's NKVD, the precursor of the KGB.

''It is an accursed place,'' former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told TVN24 after the crash.

Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that Saturday's crash has put Katyn at the center of Polish-Russian relations.

''It brought to the forefront again an event that Moscow would like to forget or, if not to forget, to sideline,'' he said, noting that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took a significant step by attending the Katyn commemorations last Wednesday with Polish counterpart Donald Tusk.

The ancient city of Smolensk has long played a significant and somewhat symbolic role in Russian-Polish relations.

Russian and Polish rulers fiercely fought over it for centuries, as well as over other contested territories in today's Ukraine and Belarus, and the Russian takeover of the city in the mid-17th century preceded Moscow's takeover of eastern Polish lands.

Earlier this week, Poles took deep satisfaction in Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's presence at the memorial for the 22,000 killed there.

Putin was the first Russian leader to commemorate the Katyn massacres with a Polish leader and noted that both nations' ''fates had been inexorably joined'' by the atrocities that saw 22,000 Polish officers, prisoners and intellectuals massacred by Stalin's secret police in 1940 in and around Katyn, a village near Russia's border with Belarus.

''In our country there has been a clear political, legal and moral judgment made of the evil acts of this totalitarian regime, and this judgment cannot be revised,'' he said, but he did not apologize or call it a war crime.

Listening to the remarks was the Polish prime minister, Tusk, not Kaczynski who, as president, was not invited to the event.

''It was a step forward. He could have not shown up, he could have not invited Tusk,'' Bugajski said.

Instead Kaczynski, along with others, made their own trip Saturday for Polish-only commemorations.

''I think in a way this is a God-given opportunity to really talk honestly about Katyn and what led to Katyn,'' Bugajski said. ''We know who killed these people.''

For half a century, Soviet officials claimed that the mass executions had been carried out by Nazi occupiers during the Second World War. But the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev's rule admitted in 1990 that the crimes had been committed by Stalin's NKVD secret police.

''Without a doubt, there is evident symbolism in this tragedy that we cannot even grasp now,'' Slawomir Debski, the head of Poland's Institute of International Affairs, said. ''At a time when it seemed we were reaching a conclusion of the Katyn issue between Poland and Russia, after the ceremonies and good gestures, we have another tragedy.''

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, said Kaczynski's death could fuel anti-Russian sentiments among some Poles.

''There will be certain people who'll say 'It was Russians who organized the whole thing,''' Lukyanov was quoted by the gazeta.ru news portal as saying.

He said only an open investigation by the Russian authorities could put to rest any suspicion but there was optimism, too.

''But we may also look for a grain of hope in that it can mend our relations because it is such a tragedy that we may see a kind of catharsis,'' Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a political scientist with Warsaw University.

Russia and Poland have always kept a wary eye on each other. Poland, after communism's collapse, eagerly embraced the west, joining the European Union and NATO, partly to anchor itself in Europe and give itself a security blanket against Russia.

Now Katyn, which has long divided the two countries, could further erode already testy national relations or, analysts said Saturday, could provide the chance for them to move forward and extend hands.

''We cannot understand why people representing the Polish state died at the same place where thousands of Poland's officers had been murdered,'' Debski said. ''Apparently this soil must like Polish blood.''

Posted by biginla at 10:39 PM BST

Updated: Saturday, 10 April 2010 10:42 PM BST

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Play Video AP  – Poland's president dies in plane crash

• Slideshow:Polish president dies in plane crash
• Play Video Video:A fairy tale world for Poland's youngest AFP
• Play Video Video:Putin and Tusk remember Poland's Katyn massacre AFP

AP – This image from Polish Television's TVP via APTN shows a firefighter walking near some of the wreckage …

SMOLENSK, Russia – Polish President Lech Kaczynski and some of the country's highest military and civilian leaders died on Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing 97, officials said.

Russian and Polish officials said there were no survivors on the 26-year-old Tupolev, which was taking the president, his wife and staff to events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre in Katyn forest of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police.

The crash devastated the upper echelons of Poland's political and military establishments. On board were the army chief of staff, the navy chief commander, and heads of the air and land forces. Also killed were the national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, Olympic Committee head, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the Polish foreign ministry said.

Although initial signs pointed to an accident with no indication of foul play, the death of a Polish president and much of the Polish state and defense establishment in Russia en route to commemorating one of the saddest events in Poland's long, complicated history with Russia, was laden with tragic irony.

Reflecting the grave sensibilities of the crash to relations between the two countries, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin personally assumed charge of the investigation. He was due in Smolensk later Saturday, where he would meet Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was flying in from Warsaw.

"This is unbelievable — this tragic, cursed Katyn," Kaczynski's predecessor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, said on TVN24 television.

It is "a cursed place, horrible symbolism," he said. "It's hard to believe. You get chills down your spine."

Andrei Yevseyenkov, spokesman for the Smolensk regional government, said Russian dispatchers asked the crew to divert from the military airport in North Smolensk and land instead in Minsk, the capital of neighboring Belarus, or in Moscow because of the fog.

While traffic controllers generally have the final word in whether it is safe for a plane to land, they can and do leave it to the pilots' discretion.

Air Force Gen. Alexander Alyoshin confirmed that the pilot disregarded instructions to fly to another airfield.

"But they continued landing, and it ended, unfortunately, with a tragedy," the Interfax news agency quoted Alyoshin as saying. He added that the pilot makes the final decision about whether to land.

Russia's Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 97 dead. His ministry said 88 of whom were part of the Polish state delegation. Poland's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Piotr Paszkowski, said there were 89 people on the passenger list but one person had not shown up for the roughly 1 1/2-hour flight from Warsaw's main airport.

Some of the people on board were relatives of those slain in the Katyn massacre. Also among the victims was Anna Walentynowicz, whose firing in August 1980 from the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk sparked a workers' strike that spurred the eventual creation of the Solidarity freedom movement. She went on to be a prominent member.

"This is a great tragedy, a great shock to us all," former president and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa said.

The deaths were not expected to directly affect the functioning of Polish government: Poland's president is commander in chief of its armed forces but the position's domestic duties are chiefly symbolic. Most top government ministers were not aboard the plane.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, there have been 66 crashes involving Tu-154s in the past four decades, including six in the past five years. The Russian carrier Aeroflot recently withdrew its Tu-154 fleet from service, largely because the planes do not meet international noise restrictions and use too much fuel.

The aircraft was the workhorse of East Bloc civil aviation in the 1970s and 1980s, and many of the crashes have been attributed to the chaos that ensued after the breakup of the Soviet Unio

Poland has long discussed replacing the planes that carry the country's leaders but said they lacked the funds.

The presidential plane was fully overhauled in December, the general director of the Aviakor aviation maintenance plant in Samara, Russia told Rossiya-24. The plant repaired the plane's three engines, retrofitted electronic and navigation equipment and updated the interior, Alexei Gusev said. He said there could be no doubts that the plane was flightworthy.

The plane tilted to the left before crashing, eyewitness Slawomir Sliwinski told state news channel Rossiya-24. He said there were two loud explosions when the aircraft hit the ground.

Rossiya-24 showed footage from the crash site, with pieces of the plane scattered widely amid leafless trees and small fires burning in woods shrouded with fog. A tail fin with the red and white national colors of Poland stuck up from the debris.

Polish-Russian relations had been improving of late after being poisoned for decades over the Katyn massacre of some 22,000 Polish officers.

Russia never has formally apologized for the murders but Putin's decision to attend a memorial ceremony earlier this week in the forest near Katyn was seen as a gesture of goodwill toward reconciliation. Kaczynski wasn't invited to that event. Putin, as prime minister, had invited his Polish counterpart, Tusk.

Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev both called Tusk to express their condolences and they promised to work closely with Poland in investigating the crash. Tusk said they had been the first to offer condolences.

"On this difficult day the people of Russia stand with the Polish people," Medvedev said, according to the Kremlin press service.

Putin told Tusk that he would keep him fully briefed on the investigation, his spokesman said.

Rossiya-24 showed hundreds of people around the Katyn monument, many holding Polish flags, some weeping.

Poland's parliament speaker, the acting president, declared a week of national mourning. Tusk called for two minutes of silence at noon (1000GMT) Sunday.

"The contemporary world has not seen such a tragedy," he said.

In Warsaw, Tusk also called an extraordinary meeting of his Cabinet and the national flag was lowered to half-staff at the presidential palace, where several thousand people gathered to lay flowers and light candles. Black ribbons appeared in some windows in the capital.

Kaczynski, 60, was the twin brother of Poland's opposition leader, former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Kaczynski's wife, Maria, was an economist. They had a daughter, Marta, and two granddaughters.

Lech Kaczynski became president in December 2005 after defeating Tusk in that year's presidential vote.

The nationalist conservative had said he would seek a second term in presidential elections this fall. He was expected to face an uphill struggle against Parliament speaker Bronislaw Komorowski, the candidate of Tusk's governing Civic Platform party.

The constitution says the parliament speaker announce early elections within 14 days of the president's death. The vote must be held within another 60 days.

Poland, a nation of 38 million people, is by far the largest of the 10 formerly communist countries that have joined the European Union in recent years.

Last year, Poland was the only EU nation to avoid recession and posted economic growth of 1.7 percent.

It has become a firm U.S. ally in the region since the fall of communism — a stance that crosses party lines.

The country sent troops to the U.S.-led war in Iraq and recently boosted its contingent in Afghanistan to some 2,600 soldiers.

U.S. Patriot missiles are expected to be deployed in Poland this year. That was a Polish condition for a 2008 deal — backed by both Kaczynski and Tusk — to host long-range missile defense interceptors.

The deal, which was struck by the Bush administration, angered Russia and was later reconfigured under President Barack Obama's administration.

Under the Obama plan, Poland would host a different type of missile defense interceptors as part of a more mobile system and at a later date, probably not until 2018.

Kaczynski is the first serving Polish leader to die since exiled World War II-era leader Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski in a plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943.

In the village of Gorzno, in northern Poland, the streets were largely empty as people stayed home to watch television.

"It is very symbolic that they were flying to pay homage to so many murdered Poles," said resident Waleria Gess, 73.

"I worry because so many clever and decent people were killed," said high school student Pawel Kwas, 17. "I am afraid we may have problems in the future to find equally talented politicians."

Posted by biginla at 5:05 PM BST

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Play Video AFP  – Interior minister killed in Kyrgyzstan uprising

• Slideshow:Protests in Kyrgyzstan
• Play Video Video:Raw Video: Several killed in Kyrgyzstan clashes AP

AP – People carry an injured man near the main government building in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Wednesday, April …

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Thousands of protesters furious over corruption and spiraling utility bills seized internal security headquarters, a state TV channel and other levers of power in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday after government forces fatally shot dozens of demonstrators and wounded hundreds.

A revolution in the Central Asian nation was proclaimed by leaders of the opposition, who have called for the closure of a U.S. air base outside the capital that serves as a key transit point for supplies essential to the war in nearby Afghanistan.

The U.S. State Department said transport operations at the Manas base were "functioning normally."

This mountainous former Soviet republic erupted when protesters called onto the streets by opposition parties for a day of protest began storming government buildings in the capital, Bishkek, and clashed with police. Groups of elite officers opened fire.

The Health Ministry said 40 people had died and more than 400 were wounded. Opposition activist Toktoim Umetalieva said at least 100 people had died after police opened fire with live ammunition.

Crowds of demonstrators took control of the state TV building and looted it, then marched toward the Interior Ministry, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene, before changing direction and attacking a national security building nearby. They were repelled by security forces loyal to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whose whereabouts were a mystery.

The opposition and its supporters appeared to gain the upper hand after nightfall, and an Associated Press reporter saw opposition leader Keneshbek Duishebayev sitting in the office of the chief of the National Security Agency, Kyrgyzstan's successor to the Soviet KGB. Duishebayev issued orders on the phone to people Duishebayev said were security agents. He also gave orders to a uniformed special forces commando.

Duishebayev told the AP that "we have created units to restore order" on the streets. He said Bakiyev may have fled to Osh, the country's second-largest city, where he has a home.

Since coming to power in 2005 on a wave of street protests known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev had ensured a measure of stability, but many observers say he has done so at the expense of democratic standards while enriching himself and his family. He gave his relatives, including his son, top government and economic posts and faced the same accusations of corruption and cronyism that led to the ouster of his predecessor.

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.

Many of the opposition leaders once were allies of Bakiyev, in some cases former ministers or diplomats.

The anti-government forces in Kyrgyzstan were in disarray until recent widespread anger over the 200 percent hike in electricity and heating gas bills helped unify them and galvanize support. Many of Wednesday's protesters were men from poor villages, including some who had come to the capital to live and work on construction sites. Already struggling, they were outraged by the utility bill hikes and were easily stirred up by opposition claims of corruption in Bakiyev's circle. Kyrgyz are secular Muslims, and Islamist sentiments do not appear to have played a role in the uprising.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. deplored the violence and urged all to respect the rule of law.

"We identify with the concerns that the people of Kyrgyzstan have about their future," but those concerns should be dealt with peacefully, Crowley said, adding that the Manas base was operating normally.

Opposition leaders have said they want it shuttered because it could put their country at risk if the United States becomes involved in a military conflict with Iran. Closing it would also please Russia, which has opposed the basing of U.S. troops on former Soviet turf.

Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov on Wednesday morning accused the opposition of having Russia's support. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin denied any involvement in the uprising.

"Russian officials have absolutely nothing to do with this," he said in the city of Smolensk. "Personally, these events caught me completely by surprise."

The unrest began Tuesday in the western city of Talas, where demonstrators stormed a government office and held a governor hostage, prompting a government warning of "severe" repercussions for continuing unrest.

The opposition called nationwide protests for the next day and police in Bishkek at first used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons and concussion grenades to try to control crowds of young men clad in black who were chasing police officers, beating them up and seizing their arms, trucks and armored personnel carriers.

Some protesters then tried to use a personnel carrier to ram the gates of the government headquarters, known as the White House. Many of the protesters threw rocks, but about a half dozen young protesters shot Kalashnikovs into the air from the square in front of the building.

"We don't want this rotten power!" protester Makhsat Talbadyev said, as he and others in Bishkek waved opposition party flags and chanted: "Bakiyev out!"

Some 200 elite police began firing, pushing the crowd back from the government headquarters.

Protesters set fire to the prosecutor general's office in the city center, and a giant plume of black smoke billowed into the sky.

Police often appeared outnumbered and overwhelmed, sometimes retreating when faced with protesters — including many armed with rocks and others who appeared to be carrying automatic weapons as they marched.

At one point police fled across the square from a large group of stone-throwing demonstrators. In another street, a small group of police took refuge behind their shields as one of their colleagues lay unconscious at their feet, his face smeared with blood.

In another area, two policemen, their faces bloodstained, tried to escape as a protester aimed kicks in their direction.

Groups of protesters then set out across Bishkek, attacking more government buildings.

An Associated Press reporter saw dozens of wounded demonstrators lining the corridors of one of Bishkek's main hospitals, a block away from the main square, where doctors were unable to cope with the flood of patients. Weeping nurses slumped over dead bodies, doctors shouted at each other and the floors were covered in blood.

Opposition activist Shamil Murat told the AP that Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongatiyev had been beaten to death by a mob in Talas. The respected Fergana.ru Web site reported later that Kongatiyev was badly beaten but had not died, saying its own reporter had witnessed the beating.

Unrest also broke out for a second day in Talas and spread to the southern city of Naryn.

Another 10,000 protesters stormed police headquarters in Talas. The protesters beat up the interior minister, Kongatiyev, and forced him to call his subordinates in Bishkek and call off the crackdown on protesters, a correspondent for the local affiliate of U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said.

Some 5,000 protesters seized Naryn's regional administration building and installed a new governor, opposition activist Adilet Eshenov said. At least four people were wounded in clashes, including the regional police chief, he said.

In the eastern region of Issyk-Kul, protesters seized the regional administration building and declared they installed their governor, the Ata-Meken opposition party said on its Web site.

At least 10 opposition leaders were arrested overnight and were being held at the security headquarters in Bishkek, opposition lawmaker Irina Karamushkina said.

At least one of them, Temir Sariyev, was freed Wednesday by protesters.

The leaders of the four other former Soviet republics in the region were certain to be watching events in Bishkek with concern, but the authoritarian, and in some cases dictatorial, natures of their governments would likely allow them to squash any attempts to challenge their rules.

___

Posted by biginla at 8:51 PM BST

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Play Video AFP  – Interior minister killed in Kyrgyzstan uprising

• Slideshow:Protests in Kyrgyzstan
• Play Video Video:Raw Video: Several killed in Kyrgyzstan clashes AP

AP – Kyrgyz riot police come under attack from demonstrators in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Wednesday, April 7, 2010. …

 

 

 by Maria Ogryzlo, BBC News, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

 

– 13 mins ago

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – An opposition politician has seized the headquarters of a branch of Kyrgyzstan's security forces — the first concrete sign that a violent uprising is now in charge of the Central Asian nation.

An Associated Press reporter saw opposition leader Keneshbek Duishebayev sitting in the office of the chief of Kyrgyzstan's succesor agency to the Soviet KGB, issuing orders on the phone to people Duishebayev said were security agents. He also saw Duishebayev giving orders to a uniformed special forces commando.

Duishebayev told the AP that "we have created units to restore order" on the streets. This mountainous former Soviet republic houses a U.S. military base that is a key supply center in the fight against the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan.

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

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Thousands of protesters furious over corruption and spiraling utility bills seized government buildings and clashed with police Wednesday in Kyrgyzstan, throwing control of the Central Asian nation into doubt. Police opened fire on demonstrators, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.

The eruption of violence shattered the relative stability of this mountainous former Soviet republic, which houses a U.S. military base that is a key supply center in the fight against the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan. The unrest in Kyrgyzstan did not appear likely to spread across former Soviet Central Asia, however.

The chaos erupted after elite police at government headquarters in the capital, Bishkek, began shooting to drive back crowds of demonstrators called onto the streets by opposition parties for a day of protest.

The crowds took control of the state TV building and looted it, then marched toward the Interior Ministry, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene, before changing direction and attacking a national security building nearby. They were repelled by security forces loyal to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

Since coming to power in 2005 on a wave of street protests known as the Tulip Revolution, Bakiyev has ensured a measure of stability in this predominantly secular Muslim nation, but many observers say he has done so at the expense of democratic standards while enriching himself and his family.

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. Many of the opposition leaders once were allies of Bakiyev.

Anti-government forces have been in disarray until recently, but widespread anger over a 200 percent hike in electricity and heating gas bills has galvanized the fractious opposition.

Temir Sariyev, an opposition party leader, told The Associated Press that "the prime minister has submitted his resignation, and the entire government is also resigning." Sariyev earlier announced a coalition of opposition politicians had agreed on a new prime minister as well as a new interior minister and new security chief.

The claims could not immediately be confirmed.

An Associated Press report saw dozens of wounded demonstrators lining the corridors of one of Bishkek's main hospitals, a block away from the main square, where doctors were unable to cope with the flood of patients. Weeping nurses slumped over dead bodies, doctors shouted at each other and the floors were covered in blood.

Kyrgyzstan's Health Ministry said 40 people had died and more than 400 were wounded in clashes with police. Opposition activist Toktoim Umetalieva said at least 100 people had died after police opened fire with live ammunition.

Opposition activist Shamil Murat told the AP that Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongatiyev had been beaten to death by a mob in the western town of Talas where the unrest began a day ago. The respected Fergana.ru Web site reported later that Kongatiyev was badly beaten but had not died, saying its own reporter had witnessed the beating.

The unrest began Tuesday in the western city of Talas, where demonstrators stormed a government office and held a governor hostage, prompting a government warning of "severe" repercussions for continuing unrest.

The opposition called nationwide protests for Wednesday and police in Bishkek at first used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannons and concussion grenades to try to control crowds of young men clad in black who were chasing police officers, beating them up and seizing their arms, trucks and armored personnel carriers.

Some protesters then tried to use a personnel carrier to ram the gates of the government headquarters, known as the White House. Many of the protesters threw rocks, but about a half dozen young protesters shot Kalashnikovs into the air from the square in front of the building.

"We don't want this rotten power!" protester Makhsat Talbadyev said, as he and others in Bishkek waved opposition party flags and chanted: "Bakiyev out!"

Some 200 elite police began firing, pushing the crowd back from the government headquarters. The president was not seen in public Wednesday and his whereabouts were unclear.

Protesters set fire to the prosecutor general's office in the city center, and a giant plume of black smoke billowed into the sky.

Police often appeared outnumbered and overwhelmed, sometimes retreating when faced with protesters — including many armed with rocks and others who appeared to be carrying automatic weapons as they marched.

At one point police fled across the square from a large group of stone-throwing demonstrators. In another street, a small group of police took refuge behind their shields as one of their colleagues lay unconscious at their feet, his face smeared with blood.

In another area, two policemen, their faces bloodstained, tried to escape as a protester aimed kicks in their direction.

"Look here, young people. We all are poor, no jobs," said one of the demonstrators, who identified himself only as Zhildysbek. "They are shooting at people. You can see for yourselves. After that, I think, there will be blood for blood."

Groups of protesters then set out across Bishkek, attacking more government buildings.

At least 10 opposition leaders were arrested overnight and were being held at the security headquarters in Bishkek, opposition lawmaker Irina Karamushkina said.

One of them, Temir Sariyev, was freed Wednesday by protesters.

The U.S. State Department called for peace and restraint on both sides.

The prime minister, meanwhile, accused the opposition of provoking the violence in the country of 5 million people.

Unrest also broke out for a second day in the western town of Talas and spread to the southern city of Naryn.

Some 5,000 protesters seized Naryn's regional administration building and installed a new governor, opposition activist Adilet Eshenov said. At least four people were wounded in clashes, including the regional police chief, he said.

Another 10,000 protesters stormed police headquarters Wednesday in Talas, where on Tuesday protesters had held the regional governor hostage in his office.

The protesters beat up the interior minister, Kongatiyev, and forced him to call his subordinates in Bishkek and call off the crackdown on protesters, a correspondent for the local affiliate of U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said.

In the eastern region of Issyk-Kul, protesters seized the regional administration building and declared they installed their governor, the Ata-Meken opposition party said on its Web site.

The leaders of the four other former Soviet republics in the region were certain to be watching events in Bishkek with concern, but the authoritarian, and in some cases dictatorial, natures of their governments would likely allow them to squash any attempts to challenge their rules.

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Posted by biginla at 7:39 PM BST

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