At least 19 people were killed in a series of bombs and shoot-outs in Uzbekistan which officials Monday blamed on Islamic militants trying to split the Central Asian country from the U.S.-led war against terror. Uzbekistan has cracked down hard on radical Islamists on its own territory and became a close ally of Washington providing an airbase for U.S. troops operating in neighboring Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. “This has been committed by the hands of international terror, including Hizb ut-Tahrir and Wahhabis,” Foreign Minister Sadyk Safayev told a news conference. Hizb ut-Tahrir, which aims to set up a pan-Islamic state that would include post-Soviet Central Asia, and the austere Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam are both outlawed in Uzbekistan. Full Story