Muslims Ussr

In a rare flare-up of violence inspired by Islamic militancy, hundreds of Soviet Muslims stormed government headquarters in Dagestan as they clamored for the right of all Muslims to undertake the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and receive government subsidies to help pay their way.

Azerbaijani Jews, fleeing by the thousands, are the latest refugees to arrive here from the troubled capital of Baku. Fearful of becoming the next target in the bloody ethnic warfare in the southern Soviet republics, they are desperately seeking permission to leave for Israel or the United States. Some of the refugees report incidents of Jews being beaten or threatened by Muslim extremists.

Riots broke out in the capital of Tadzhikistan during protests Monday against the resettlement of ethnic Armenian refugees in the Soviet Asian republic, official sources said. One report said there were several deaths and dozens of injuries. The official Tass news agency said a state of emergency and a nighttime curfew have been imposed on the city of Dushanbe to quell "mass disorders and pogroms and acts of arson and looting."

In a dramatic popular challenge to Soviet authorities, a two-day general strike involving millions of workers began Monday in the southern Soviet republic of Armenia to demand the transfer of a largely Armenian district from neighboring Azerbaijan. The strike paralyzed Yerevan, the Armenian capital, and most other major cities and towns in the republic, according to government spokesmen here and in Yerevan.

The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader, warned Wednesday against "miscalculated and harsh" measures by Soviet troops in the strife-torn Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. But displaying the caution that has marked Iranian comments on the violence in Azerbaijan, Khamenei leavened his warning with praise for the loosening of religious restraints under Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Muslim militants from the Soviet Union's southern republics announced the formation of an Islamic Democratic Party on Sunday, and the chairman said he considers the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran a "great leader." "Khomeini was very good for us," said the party's provisional leader, Dadakhan Hassanov, a composer and performer of traditional Uzbek music. "He opened windows for us."

Young women wearing brightly colored head scarves, some carrying infants and others leading toddlers by the hand, are a common sight in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. Indeed, children seem to be everywhere in the narrow, curving lanes of the city's adobe-walled Old Quarter. The average family has three or four children, and some have as many as 12. "Uzbek people love children," a young mother said, with pride in her voice.

Two days of rioting in the Soviet Central Asian city of Dushanbe has killed at least 37 people, Soviet state television and radio reported Tuesday, as mobs stormed and ransacked the Communist Party headquarters there, looted shops and clashed repeatedly with security forces in a new explosion of ethnic violence.

Islamic flags and portraits of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were displayed in the streets of the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, and 867 people were arrested as ethnic tensions continued, the official media said Monday. In Yerevan, the capital of the neighboring republic of Armenia, unofficial sources said Moscow dissident Sergei I. Grigoryants and another leading Armenian activist were arrested.

Armenian residents of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the southern Soviet republic of Azerbaijan have called off their monthlong general strike demanding the area's incorporation into neighboring Armenia, Communist Party officials reported Sunday. In Stepanakert, the regional capital, a party official said by telephone that some local factories had begun work again Sunday but added that it would not be clear until today how many of the strikers would return to work.