Uzbek opposition says 745 died
 |  A military truck carries Uzbek soldiers on a road outside the eastern city of Andijan. |
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 Unrest is the bloodiest in Uzbekistan's post-Soviet history
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TASHKENT, Uzbekistan -- An Uzbek opposition leader says her party has compiled a list of 745 people allegedly killed by government troops in Uzbekistan.
Nigara Khidoyatova, the head of the Free Peasants party, told The Associated Press that 542 people had been killed in Andijan and 203 people in Pakhtabad, another city in the Fergana Valley.
Khidoyatova said her party had arrived at the figure by speaking to relatives of those killed, and the count was continuing. CNN has not confirmed the report.
The unrest, which began Thursday, is the worst since Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Uzbek government, which witnesses say has fired on demonstrators in affected areas, blames Islamic extremists for inciting the violence.
"Soldiers were roaming the streets and shooting at innocent civilians," Khidoyatova told AP. "Many victims were shot in the back of the head."
Khidoyatova said her party's representatives had talked to victims' relatives and attended the victims' funerals.
"The count hasn't yet finished, and the death toll will rise," she said.
The crackdown in Andijan came Friday after protesters stormed a prison, freed inmates and then seized local government offices. But many of the demonstrators were citizens complaining about poverty and unemployment.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that the United States was "still trying to understand" what happened in Andijan, but that Uzbekistan needs to a more open political system.
"They really need more political reform and we've been saying that to the Uzbeks for some time," Rice said.
"I don't mean that they should tolerate terrorists or terrorist groups. ... But it is a system that is politically too closed."
"The main preoccupations are now to encourage everybody to forgo any further violence, to help with the refugees that went into Kyrgyzstan out of Uzbekistan, and to try to deal with the consequences right now of this set of issues," she said.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is visiting Washington for talks about the crisis.
At a news conference on Monday, Straw said the actions of the Uzbek authorities "plainly cannot be justified" and demanded immediate access to Andijan for the International Red Cross, foreign diplomats and journalists.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
