THE Kyrgyz border guard wiped a bead of sweat from his weatherbeaten brow and pointed across the ramshackle bridge into Uzbekistan.

“You can go across,” the guard said, “but I’m not responsible for your safety. There is no government there, no police, no anything.”

Sure enough, as The Times crossed the bridge, there was no sign of a border guard, a customs officer or a policeman to stop any one from entering without a visa — just a handful of traders milling around teashops and fruit stalls.

The air, however, was thick with tension.

Uzbek officials disappeared three days ago, the traders explained, as the residents of Karasu went on a rampage triggered by the massacre of hundreds of protesters in the Uzbek city of Andijan, 50 miles to the west, on Friday. They beat up the mayor of Karasu, torched cars, set fire to the local traffic and tax police headquarters and rebuilt the bridge link to Kyrgyzstan, which had been closed for two years.

Now local people say that they are bracing for further bloodshed as government forces prepare to retake this sprawling town of 50,000 straddling the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border.

“Of course they will come back, when things have quietened down,” Mohamijan, 53, said as he tended his hardware stall in the market. “But if they come now, there will be violence. They are afraid of the people now because we taught them a lesson.”

Uzbek troops have occupied Andijan and taken control of several other towns and villages near by in a bid to stop the worst violence in Uzbekistan’s post-Soviet history from spreading.

Security forces have also encircled Karasu, setting up road blocks just four miles outside the city — but have yet to launch an assault.

“It’s quiet now, but they might come soon — the military,” said Jafangir, 20, who is unemployed. “Sometimes, security guys come into town, check things and leave.

“No one knows what will happen. It depends how the soldiers and the police behave. A lot of us had relatives killed and injured in Andijan.”

But the violence in Karasu was not just a reaction to the shooting of up to 500 protesters by government forces in Andijan on Friday after rebels stormed government buildings and freed prisoners accused of Islamic extremism.

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