More violence grips Kyrgyzstan

Islam Times reports from Press TV: Amid mystery over the whereabouts of the country's ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, more violence gripped Kyrgyzstan on Monday.

Ethnic Kyrgyz rioters seized plots of land from Russians and Turks in Mayevka, a village outside Bishkek, prompting the country's interim government to send in hundreds of police to quell the unrest.

"The police and internal forces have established order in the village. Forty instigators of the riots have been arrested," the head of the interim government, Roza Otunbayeva, told reporters.

The violence was the latest challenge to the interim government which seized power in Kyrgyzstan this month in the wake of a popular uprising that ousted the president.

So far, the interim government has failed to establish full control over the country, a mountainous former Soviet republic which is home to a US air base used to supply operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, officials in neighboring Kazakhstan say the deposed Kyrgyz president has left for an unknown destination. Bakiyev had sought refuge in Kazakhstan in the aftermath of a bloody uprising in his country last month.

He is wanted by the interim Kyrgyz government in connection with the deaths in the revolt that unseated him on April 7. More than 80 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in the unrest.