A bomb exploded in a nightclub in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe overnight, wounding at least five people, security sources said today.
The blast followed an attack by suicide car bombers in another part of the Central Asian republic on Friday in which two police officers were killed.
Sources within Tajikistan's security services said two people were detained almost immediately on suspicion of causing the blast.
One of the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unlikely the two bombings were connected. "The device was placed beneath a table in the nightclub. But the explosion was small and did not have serious consequences in terms of human victims," the source said.
Senior interior ministry official Tokhir Normatov said the explosion occurred at about midnight. The nightclub is in a suburb of Dushanbe and is frequented mainly by locals.
Investigators were at the scene of the blast, Mr Normatov said.
In Friday's attack, suicide car bombers killed two police officers and wounded 25 at a police station in Tajikistan's second-largest city Khujand. Tajikistan's first known suicide bombing in five years dealt a blow to the government of the former Soviet republic, where poverty pushes youths toward radical Islam and political rivalries still fester more than a decade after a civil war.
The Interior Ministry said Friday's attack was probably carried out by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which aims to establish Islamic rule in Central Asia and has fought alongside the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Tajik president Imomali Rakhmon's government often blames the IMU for attacks, while his critics and rights groups accuse him of using the Islamist threat as an excuse to crack down on dissent in the county of seven million.
Reuters