Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev today said any attempt to seize or kill him by the Central Asian country's interim leadership would result in bloodshed.
"Let them try to seize me, let them try to kill me. I believe this will lead to such a great deal of bloodshed which no one will be able to justify," he told reporters after speaking to thousands of supporters in a town in the south of the country.
Mr Bakiyev fled Bishkek to his stronghold in the south on April 7th after troops fired on protesters outside his offices, killing at least 81 people. The interim government says he must step down or possibly face arrest.
"We are preparing a special operation [against Bakiyev]," Almaz Atambayev, the first deputy leader of the interim government, told reporters in Bishkek.
"But he is hiding behind a human shield . . . we hope we can carry it out without the deaths of civilians," Mr Atambayev said. He refused to give any further details about the operation or to say when it would take place.
Yesterday, the new government, led by Mr Bakiyev's one-time allies, said it would not use force against Mr Bakiyev but suggested it may act to arrest him and try him for the deaths in Bishkek.
Holed up in his home village of Teyyit outside the city of Jalalabad, Mr Bakiyev told Reuters yesterday that any attempt to kill him would "drown Kyrgyzstan in blood". The ousted president's defiance has threatened to further destabilise the volatile Central Asian nation where the United States operates a key military air base supporting operations in nearby Afghanistan.
A few thousand supporters gathered for a rally today that Mr Bakiyev addressed in his home village.
Speaking to reporters before the rally, Mr Bakiyev said he had spoken to an envoy from the United Nations to ask for peacekeepers to be sent.
The self-proclaimed government has said Russia is its key ally and some leading ministers have said the US lease on its air base could be shortened, raising speculation Moscow could try to use the base as a lever in relations with Washington.
Reuters