The declaration by the UN that the fighting was "orchestrated, targeted and well-planned" - set off by organized groups of gunmen in ski masks - bolsters government claims that hired attackers marauded through the southern city of Osh, shooting at Kyrgyz and Uzbeks to inflame old tensions.

Kyrgyzstan's interim leaders have blamed the former president's inner circle for igniting the unrest - the worst ethnic violence to hit Central Asia in 20 years. The bloodshed has eroded the provisional government's grip on power and threatens a crucial referendum later this month.

Kyrgyz troops patrolled the burned-out streets of Osh on Wednesday trying to maintain a fragile peace between feuding ethnic groups after days of fierce fighting.

Mainly Muslim Kyrgyzstan has been on edge since a violent revolt in April toppled its president and brought an interim government to power. Clashes between its main ethnic groups, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, erupted in the south on June 10.

The United States and Russia have watched the events with unease as both operate military air bases in the nation.

At least 179 people have been killed, mainly in Osh, a low-rise city of mud-brick houses and crumbling Soviet-era architecture near the Uzbek border.

The violence has subsided in the past two days, but gunfire was still heard in Osh overnight, though it was unclear who was shooting at whom, residents said.

"Death to Uzbeks" was painted on some houses.

At a hospital near Osh on Tuesday, dozens of wounded Uzbeks lay in corridors and on broken beds, and many said the rampages were premeditated.

"Well-armed people who were obviously well prepared for this conflict were shooting at us," said Teymurat Yuldashev, 26, who had bullet wounds of different calibers in his arm and chest. "They were organized, with weapons, militants and snipers. They simply destroyed us."

More than 100,000 Uzbeks have fled for their lives to neighboring Uzbekistan, and tens of thousands more, most of them women and children, were camped on the Kyrgyz side or stranded in a no man's land behind barbed-wire.

The International Committee of the Red Cross had no precise figure of the dead, but spokesman Christian Cardon said "we are talking about several hundred."

Kyrgyzstan's interim President Roza Otunbayeva also said the real toll was likely "several times higher" than the official count of 179 people killed, because many victims were quickly buried by their relatives in keeping with Muslim tradition. Nearly 1,900 have been wounded, the Health Ministry said.

Otunbayeva said she talked again with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev about sending in troops, a move Moscow refused over the weekend.

Otunbayeva's government, which took over when former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in an April uprising, has claimed that Bakiyev's family instigated the violence to halt a June 27 referendum on a new constitution. The provisional authorities need the vote to gain legitimacy and lay the groundwork for parliamentary elections scheduled for October.

Uzbeks generally have been better off economically and own many stores and cafes, making them targets for mobs of young jobless Kyrgyz men. Most Uzbeks also backed the interim government, hoping to win more political rights, while many Kyrgyz in the south have supported Bakiyev and worried that their interests would suffer under the new leadership.

Reuters contributed to this story.

Associated Press

(China Daily 06/17/2010 page23)