Kyrgyz security forces conducted security sweeps Monday in the volatile south of the Central Asian republic, arresting 20 people with suspected terror links ahead of upcoming presidential polls.
The clampdown came in the Osh and Jalalabad regions that witnessed most of the ethnic violence that killed hundreds in June 2010 following the ouster of the country's long-serving president.
"The police have thus far detained 20 suspected terrorists in the south," Osh interior ministry spokesman Zamir Sydykov told AFP.
"The police are continuing searches and arrests," he said.
The raids came after police over the weekend reported killing a suspected religious radical they identified as a member of the Islamic Jihad Union, a banned group designated as a terror organisation by the US State Department.
The man was shot dead near the city of Osh after he hijacked a minibus with 15 passengers in an attempt to escape from the police, security officials said.
A divided ex-Soviet nation of 5.3 million with strategic proximity to Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan is gearing up for October 30 presidential elections in which candidates from the south will challenge Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev.
Clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and the republic's Uzbek minority that primarily lives in the south followed the April 2010 ouster of the country's veteran leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who fled abroad.
The ethnic clashes left a total of 470 people dead and displaced some 411,000, according to an international report.