Authorities said Karimov, 78, was pronounced dead at 8:55 pm local time (1555 GMT) after he suffered a stroke over the weekend and fell into a coma, following days of speculation that authorities were delaying the announcement of his death. The strongman's funeral will be held in his home city of Samarkand, central Uzbekistan, on Saturday morning according to his wishes as the country begins three days of mourning, the statement said. Uzbekistan now faces the greatest moment of uncertainty in its post-Soviet history. Karimov's body was to be flown to Samarkand airport, which on Saturday will be closed to all flights except those with special permission.
From there, the funeral cortege is to set off at 6 am local time, with people able to pay their last respects from 9 am on a city square close to the cemetery where he will be buried, Russian news agencies reported, citing local officials. Loyalist Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev is heading the organisation committee for the funeral, suggesting that he could be in line to take over long-term from Karimov.
Under Uzbek law, senate head Nigmatulla Yuldashev should now become acting president until early elections are held. Karimov's youngest daughter Lola wrote on Facebook "he has left us... I am struggling for words, I can't believe it myself". Uzbek state television switched to footage of folk musicians playing traditional instruments against a black background after announcing his death.
- 'Great loss' - Long condemned by rights groups as one of the region's most brutal despots who ruthlessly stamped out opposition, Karimov was one of a handful of Soviet strongmen that clung to power after their homelands gained independence from Moscow in 1991. Karimov portrayed himself as guarantor of stability and bulwark against radical Islam on the borders of Afghanistan, crushing fundamentalist groups at home.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Karimov's death "a great loss for the people of Uzbekistan" in a telegram to interim leader Yuldashev, while Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is set to jet in for the funeral. Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon confirmed he will attend while Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was reported to also be planning to go.
Ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Kazakhstan all said they were sending delegations headed by their prime ministers. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who appointed Karimov to head the former Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan in 1989, told Interfax news agency that Karimov was "a competent man with a strong character". Kazakhstan's strongman leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled for as long as Karimov said: "I grieve for the loss of a friend whom I worked with side-by-side for 30 years."
Born on January 30, 1938, Karimov was raised in an orphanage in the ancient city of Samarkand, before studying mechanical engineering and economics and rising up the ranks of the Communist party. Rights groups -- which have long accused Karimov's regime of the most serious abuses including torture and forced labour in the lucrative cotton industry -- said his time in power had been a catastrophe for Uzbekistan. "Islam Karimov leaves a legacy of a quarter century of ruthless repression," Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said.
"Karimov ruled through fear to erect a system synonymous with the worst human rights abuses: torture, disappearances, forced labour, and the systematic crushing of dissent." Most seriously, the authorities were accused of killing hundreds of protesters in the eastern city of Andijan in 2005.
In the wake of international criticism over the alleged massacre, which Karimov's regime rebuffed, Tashkent shut down a US military base used to supply operations in neighbouring Afghanistan since 2001. The head of the Russian lower house of parliament's international affairs committee, Alexei Pushkov, said Karimov's death ushered in a "phase of uncertainty over Uzbekistan's future". "The shorter this phase is, the better for the country and its neighbours," he wrote on Twitter. Despite economic growth of some eight percent, critics say that Uzbekistan's economy is in a dire situation with a corrupt elite in control of most of its industry.