Cheremushki, Shait-Tepe, Shark, and others, described to Human Rights Watch independently by dozens of witnesses, showed a consistent pattern. In many accounts, individuals in camouflage uniforms on armored military vehicles entered the neighborhoods first, removing the makeshift barricades that Uzbek residents had erected. They were followed by armed men who shot and chased away any remaining residents, and cleared the way for the looters. The authorities claimed that Kyrgyz mobs stole the military uniforms, weapons, and vehicles that were used in the attacks. Observers pointed out that if this claim was true, it would raise a separate set of questions regarding the military's loss of control over weapons and equipment that ended up in the hands of mobs attacking ethnic Uzbeks and their property. The interim government granted shoot-to-kill powers to its security forces in the south of Kyrgyzstan, which was criticized by human rights organizations. The interim government's shoot-to-kill orders resulted in indiscriminate killing of many ethnic Uzbeks. Different sources suspected the Kyrgyz security forces' hand in the violence. On 3 May 2011, in the article "Kyrgyzstan's Army Implicated in Ethnic Bloodshed," the Associated Press reported that an international investigation into the causes of the ethnic conflict had concluded that Kyrgyz security forces' handing out of weapons to mobs during the violence was an indication of the military's complicity in the violence. Human Rights Watch also reported some government forces' involvement in the attacks on Uzbek neighborhoods: The police and local authorities failed to stop the spread of the pogroms, which was seen as proof of the total ineffectiveness of the interim government headed by Roza Otunbayeva. Although the Kyrgyz government that failed to establish law and order during the violence blamed external forces for the bloody clashes, it did not provide evidence to support this claim. Human rights violations were committed by security forces not only during the June events, but also in their aftermath. After the violence stopped, Kyrgyz law enforcement officers carried out arbitrary arrests, ill-treated detainees, beat and insulted residents, and in some cases even killed people. The Kyrgyz security forces carried out sweep operations, purportedly to confiscate illegal weapons. Investigations carried out by international organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International concluded that law enforcement agencies had conducted arbitrary raids mainly in Uzbek neighborhoods: Human Rights Watch received dozens of reports of police officials asking for exorbitant bribes of up to $10,000