A security official in Kyrgyzstan says four militants were killed during a police raid Monday in the restive, southern city of Osh.
The head of Kyrgyzstan's Security Council, Marat Imankulov, said special forces shot three members of a banned militant Islamist group during a gunbattle. A fourth rebel was killed after detonating a grenade.
Reuters new agency reports that at least two police officers were wounded during the raid on a house near the city's central market. Imankulov said the special operation was conducted to arrest militants and has now ended.
He says preliminary reports suggest the militants belong to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a militant group with links to al-Qaida.
Kyrgyzstan is still reeling from several days of riots in June between ethnic Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks that killed hundreds of people and displaced 400,000 others in the country's south.
An interim government has run Kyrgyzstan since a deadly uprising toppled then-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April. The country is attempting to form its first ever parliamentary government following October elections.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
