Unrest Prompts Security Meeting

Top security officials of three former Soviet states held an emergency meeting in southern Kyrgyzstan amid reports that at least seven people had been killed in battles with gunmen who swept across Central Asia’s borders. A spokesman for the Kyrgyz presidency said the defense, interior and national security ministers of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan were joined by security officials from Tajikistan in Batken, a Kyrgyz town near the three states’ borders. He said that fighting had raged for more than a day with rebels in the Kyrgyz mountains. A provincial official in Batken said at least four Kyrgyz troops had died in the fighting. An officer at the National Security Ministry in the capital, Bishkek, said at least three rebels had died.