suicide bombers in Uzbekistan. On the same day, three police officers were shot dead. In Bukhara, another explosion at a suspected terrorist bomb factory caused ten fatalities. The following day police raided an alleged militant hideout south of the capital city. President Karimov claimed the attacks were probably the work of a banned radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir ("The Party of Liberation"), although the group denied responsibility. Other groups that might have been responsible include militant groups operating from camps in Tajikistan and Afghanistan and opposed to the government's support of the United States since September 11, 2001. In 2004, British ambassador Craig Murray was removed from his post after speaking out against the regime's human rights abuses and British collusion therein. On July 30, 2004, terrorists bombed the embassies of Israel and the United States in Tashkent, killing three people and wounding several. The Jihad Group in Uzbekistan posted a claim of responsibility for those attacks on a website linked to Al-Qaeda. Terrorism experts say the reason for the attacks is Uzbekistan's support of the United States and its War on terror. In May 2005, several hundred demonstrators were killed when Uzbek troops fired into a crowd protesting against the imprisonment of 23 local businessmen. (For further details, see 2005 Andijan Unrest.) In July 2005, the Uzbek government gave the US 180 days' notice to leave the airbase it had leased in Uzbekistan. A Russian airbase and a German airbase remain. In December 2007 Islam A. Karimov was reelected to power in a fraudulent election. Western election observers noted that the election failed to meet many OSCE benchmarks for democratic elections, the elections were held in a strictly controlled environment, and there had been no real opposition since all the candidates publicly endorsed the incumbent. Human rights activists reported various cases of multiple voting throughout the country as well as official pressure on voters at polling stations to cast ballots for Karimov. The BBC reported that many people were afraid to vote for anyone other than the president. According to the constitution Karimov was ineligible to stand as a candidate, having already served two consecutive presidential terms and thus his candidature was illegal. The lead up to the elections was characterized by the secret police arresting dozens of opposition activists and putting them in jail including Yusuf Djumayaev, an opposition poet. Several news organizations, including The New York Times, the