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  "Only terrorists were liquidated by government forces," the prosecutor said, adding that militants killed several hostages and innocent civilians.

Kadyrov said 137 "terrorists" and 32 troops were killed in the eastern town of Andijan - a sharp rise from the nine deaths the government originally announced on Friday. Some of those killed were foreign fighters, he said.

However, opposition leaders blamed government troops for most of the killings. They allege that over 500 people, many of them innocent civilians, were killed in Andijan and more than 200 in the nearby town of Pakhtabad.

Nigara Khidoyatova, head of the unregistered opposition Free Peasants Party, said her party reached its figure of 745 killed in the two towns by speaking to relatives of the missing. "The count hasn't yet finished, and the death toll will rise," she told The Associated Press.

Other witnesses said several hundred people were killed in Andijan.

The unrest was the worst since the former Soviet republic won independence in 1991.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice again appealed to Uzbekistan's government to open its political system and to reform.

"Nobody is asking any government to deal with terrorists," she said of a bloody clash between government forces and protesters.

At a State Department news conference Tuesday, she stressed U.S. concern with the country's human rights record and said she hoped the government "would be very, very open in understanding what has happened here."

Rice said innocent people had lost their lives and "that is always a cause for concern."

The events began Friday when protesters stormed a prison in Andijan, freed alleged Islamic militants and other inmates, and seized local government offices. Thousands of demonstrators filled the city's central square and listened to speeches, mostly complaining about poverty and unemployment.

That's when the government crackdown began.

An AP reporter and photographer saw trucks with troops drive by the square and open fire into the crowd after some protesters threw stones at them. Some protesters were armed.

Troops Kept Firing

"No one is talking about what kind of peaceful demonstration it was that was well-armed, attacked police and regular troops, seized their weapons, attacked a prison and freed 600 inmates," Karimov said Tuesday.

But at a tent camp across the Kyrgyzstan border, Uzbek refugees said their demonstration in the central square was peaceful and that the troops kept firing.

"They fired nonstop," said Tojiba Mukhtarova, 38, sitting in a tent with other women, adding that she was torn by thoughts of the five children she left in Andijan. "We waved in the air with white scarves, but they continued to shoot at us."

Karimov, the Uzbek president, dismissed Khidoyatova's claim of over 700 dead as one made by a "person who needs psychiatric treatment."

"Let's count the number of graves tomorrow," he said, apparently referring to a government-organized trip to Andijan for foreign media and diplomats set for Wednesday.

A respected doctor in Andijan, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety, told the AP she saw about 500 bodies that were laid out at a school during the weekend for collection by relatives.

But a physical education teacher at the school Tuesday, who didn't give his name, said there had been only "four or five" bodies there.

Workers at a college across the street, where the doctor said she had seen 100 more bodies, refused to let journalists inside. A woman living next door, who identified herself only as Galina out of fear for her security, said she saw three trucks take away 30 to 40 dead.

She said that as the injured ran into courtyards screaming for help, residents were afraid to leave their homes. She said doctors arrived later to help.

On Tuesday, the streets remained stained with blood and security was tight. Armored vehicles guarded approaches to official buildings and troops in combat gear watched from behind concrete barricades.

Witnesses said an armored personnel carrier fired at a vehicle trying to leave the city early Tuesday, killing several passengers. The victims allegedly were businessmen connected to Akramia, a group of Muslim businessmen at the center of the unrest.

Morgue workers buried 37 bodies in graves marked only with numbered plates near a cemetery on hills surrounding the city. Under guard of four soldiers, the workers didn't tell the head of the cemetery the identity of the bodies, wrapped in white shrouds, other than saying they were young men.

A crew of AP journalists riding in a car through an Andijan neighborhood Tuesday were stopped at gunpoint and forced to the ground by plainclothes police wielding Kalashnikovs and pistols. The police claimed there were reports of gunfire from the area.

The journalists were later forced to stand with their arms and legs spread against a wall while police checked their identification. A dozen special forces troops in black uniforms then moved into the area for a brief search.

After being driven to a police station, the journalists were released about two hours after the incident began and their documents returned.

In Pakhtabad, virtually all the victims were women and children apparently trying to flee violence by crossing into Kyrgyzstan, Khidoyatova said.

However, other activists and journalists who traveled to the Pakhtabad area haven't confirmed reports of large-scale violence there, and it was possible that some of those who fled to Kyrgyzstan had been reported dead by their relatives.

In the border town of Korasuv, Islamic leaders claimed that all police and other officials had fled, and they pledged to fight the authorities.

"In many cities around this area, and even in Kyrgyzstan, we have support. These people are also Muslims and they also stand for justice," Bakhtiyor Rakhimov told the AP.

More than 500 Uzbek refugees, including 96 women and 21 children, have crossed into Kyrgyzstan near the Uzbek village of Teshik Tosh.

Some at the tent camp said they were fired on by Uzbek troops, and that at least six refugees were killed.

"We raised our hands, shouted that we are unarmed, but they kept firing," said Khabibullo Rakhimberdiyev.

Kyrgyz officials have indicated the refugees could be sent home quickly, but the refugees shuddered at the thought of returning to Uzbekistan.

"We demand that an international court take it up," said Abdusalom Karimov, 37. "If the world wants to know the truth about it, that must be done."

© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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