As many as 600 members of an Islamist Uzbek group escaped U.S. troops in Afghanistan and found refuge in Pakistan, one guerilla said Thursday. Mukhiddin Nuritdinov, a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, answered journalists’ questions from National Security Service lock-up. Nuritdinov, 42, was born in Namangan, an Uzbek city in the Ferghana valley, considered an Islamic stronghold. In the early 1970s, Nuritdinov was a soldier of the Soviet army. After demobilization he worked as a weaver. At that time he started to study Islam. In the 1990s Nuritdinov and some his comrades began to rob rich people to “restore justice” and help families of convicted Muslims. A part of the loot is also meant for “fighters for Islam” in neighboring Tajikistan. Full Story