General Prosecutor of Uzbekistan Rashid Kadirov held a briefing on August 9 for representatives of Mass Media and diplomatic corpus in Uzbekistan on the terrorist bombings in Tashkent.

Four people died and more than seven injured as a result of three suicide-explosions set off in front of the US and Israel Embassies as well as at the main entrance of the General Prosecutor?s Office, Mr. Rashidov said.

All four victims of the terrorist attacks including an officer of the Uzbek National Security Service and two policemen were on duty guarding the buildings of the US and Israeli Embassies. They prevented more drastic consequences of the terrorist attacks and saved the lives of the Embassy employees and other innocent people.

Mr. Rashidov confirmed that all three terrorists had been killed on the spot by the explosions and ?the damage to the buildings of the US and Israel Embassies and also the General Prosecutor?s Office is being calculated?. About 1500 witnesses were questioned, the General Prosecutor said adding that the details of the terrorist attacks and the whole set of materials discovered during the investigation were being closely examined.

According to the preliminary conclusions of the experts all three explosions were carried out by hand-made explosive devices of a fission-fragment and fougasse type used by suicide-bombers.

Explosive devices consisted of acetone peroxide, a hand-made main explosive component of high capacity. Terrorists also used pentrite as an additional component. Pentrite is a white granular substance which is used as a main component in plastic bombs of foreign origin ? so called ?plastits?. The device was filled with metal bolts and tailored pieces of metal wire and apparently equipped with a switch-tumbler. The peculiarity of the ?acetone peroxide? is that it is hand-made and it is not produced by factories, it can not be discovered by the sniffing dogs, he said. The capacity of those explosives equals to 1-1.5 kilos of TNT.

The explosive devices carried by the criminals at the moment of explosions were in black bags with the size of approximately 25x35 cm. Mr.Rashidov revealed that the law enforcement bodies had obtained detailed information about two terrorists. However this information could not be exposed to the public at this stage of the investigations.

The expert examination of the third suicide-bomber?s body remnants including his DNA test is still in progress.

The General Prosecutor stressed that the information gathered by the investigation gave all the reasons to judge that the explosions had a direct connection with previous terrorist attacks in March and April in Tashkent City, Tashkent and Bukhara regions and were part of a single chain of criminal activities organized and coordinated by a common centre located abroad.

Firstly, in both cases the terrorist attacks were conducted almost simultaneously and in a similar manner, namely, suicide-bombers detonated hand-made explosive devices, which were assembled from authentic components.

Secondly, in both cases terrorists chose their targets in such a manner that sought to garner public and international attraction.

Thirdly, some of the criminals that have a link to the recent attacks already were on the wanted list of the police for their involvement in the terrorist acts in March and April in Tashkent and Bukhara.

For the fourth, the main goal of all those attacks is to destabilize the situation in the country and undermine its international image.

The investigations on the basis of the established facts also point out that the international radical-extremist organizations including ?Hizb-ut-tahrir? stand behind the suicide bombings, the General Prosecutor added.

The investigation, coordinated by the Governmental Commission and carried out by a special group including the officers of the General Prosecutor?s Office, National Security Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs is continuing.