The authorities in Uzbekistan have said that an area in the south of the country was shelled, presumably from neighboring Afghanistan.
The Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) says five projectiles struck at around 4:20 p.m. local time on July 5, but they did not explode.
The shells struck four homes in a residential neighborhood in the southern city of Termez, but no one was hurt, says a statement released by the Uzbek MFA yesterday evening. A fifth reportedly landed in a soccer field.
Nobody is known to have claimed responsibility.
Uzbek officials are liaising with the Taliban-run government in Afghanistan to investigate the source of the alleged attack, the Uzbek MFA statement says.
Radio Liberty says there has been no official comment on reports that Uzbek fighter planes took off after the incident. Nor has there been official comment on a video purporting to show one of the damaged houses.
Eurasianet says this incident, and the fact of how it has been reported to the public, is unusual insofar as Uzbek officials have in the past issued swift denials when an attack is said to have taken place.
In mid-April, social media accounts reportedly linked to the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP, circulated a statement to say the militant group had launched multiple rockets at a military unit near Termez. The claims were reportedly accompanied by video footage of the rockets allegedly used in the assault.
In that instance, officials in Tashkent responded to deny any rockets had landed on Uzbek territory, but they later walked back the denial, according to Eurasianet.
