Abdusalom Azizov
By the editors of Exec Edge
Abdusalom Azizov, the head of Uzbekistan’s state security apparatus, was dismissed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev during an emergency cabinet meeting in Tashkent on Friday evening, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Uzbek media reported. A number of other high-ranking government officials, including Alijon Ashurov, the head of the state security service’s internal security unit, were also fired for obstructing the investigation, deepening the unrest, RFE/RL reported.
The resignation comes almost a month after the failed attempt on the life of Komil Allamjonov, the president’s former press security officer, who left the government in September. Four suspects have been arrested since the attack, but a fifth has fled to South Korea, where he has so far managed to evade Korean and Uzbek authorities.
Neither government has provided an update on the investigation or provided a motive, increasing international scrutiny and pressure on Uzbek and South Korean authorities.
Observers from Uzbekistan speculate that Azizov’s dismissal is related to the assassination attempt.
The attempt on Allamjonov’s life pulled back the curtain on the interconnected nature of the highest levels of Uzbek government and society, past and present, as reporters tried to untangle the Byzantine narrative.
During his term in office, Allamjonov worked closely with Saida Mirziyoyev, the president’s eldest daughter and number two in the government. The media reported a rift between Allamjonov and Otabek Umarov, the deputy head of the president’s security service and husband of his youngest daughter, Shahnoza.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Umarov left Uzbekistan today, although his motivations are unknown.
After the assassination attempt, two gunmen briefly took refuge in a nightclub in eastern Uzbekistan owned by the daughters of the late Vitaly Fen, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to South Korea, who died in June. The fifth suspect in the attack, Yavlon Yunusov, is the common-law husband of one of the nightclub owners and fled to South Korea in the hours after the attack on Allamjonov.
Azizov, 64, a veteran of the highest levels of Uzbekistan’s government, had been head of the country’s state security service for five years. Before that, he was Minister of Defense for two years and before that briefly Minister of the Interior. In 2019, Azizov received the military title of lieutenant general and was appointed chairman of the State Security Council shortly afterwards. He was also chairman of the Football Association of Uzbekistan. Azizov, a career security official, was head of the Interior for Tashkent and headed the Interior Department for Uzbekistan’s Jizzakh region, west of Tashkent, before serving in Mirziyoyev’s government.
