Several explosions and a gun battle rattled the northeast of the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Tuesday, the day after bomb blasts the government blamed on Islamic militants killed 19 people on the U.S. ally’s territory. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilhom Zakirov said Uzbek Interior Ministry special forces were conducting a mopping-up operation in a mainly residential district with a large tractor factory. “Special police forces are eliminating the remains of a terrorist group which had been detected in this area earlier,” Zakirov added. He said the situation was fully under control. General Prosecutor’s spokeswoman Svetlana Artykova told Reuters that “terrorists” were being rounded up. “Naturally, they are putting up some resistance,” she said. Uzbek officials declined to say how many people they thought were involved in the fighting or discuss casualty numbers. Full Story