Pakistan's 'fanatical' Uzbek militants

In South Waziristan, the Pakistani army is bracing itself for confrontation with what it says are "a large group of Uzbek extremists". So who are they and what are they doing in Pakistan?

Most of the Uzbek militants in South Waziristan belong to the al Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

Renowned for their fanaticism, Uzbek militants initially fled their home country in the early 1990s after a government crackdown on people who advocated the introduction of Sharia law in secular Uzbekistan.

Nobody knows exactly how many there are in Pakistan - estimates vary wildly from 500 to 5,000. Not all Uzbeks there are active militants - some are merely supporters of the Taliban while others are little more than "hired guns".

Taliban loyalty

When founded in August 1998 in the north of Afghanistan, the IMU's main aim was to overthrow the government of President Islam Karimov and establish an Islamic state in Uzbekistan

In 1999 the IMU set up several military camps in northern Afghanistan from where it launched incursions into southern Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000.

When the US-led alliance invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the IMU announced its loyalty to the Taliban.

The IMU is believed to have suffered heavy losses while fighting alongside the Taliban against US-led forces in 2001. But it successfully re-organised itself in the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan over the following years.

The military say that Uzbek militants are a formidable enemy.

Pakistani security forces believe that some of the major bomb attacks in Islamabad are the work of Central Asian militants