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Bakiyev had effectively been removed from power.

Recent widespread anger over the 200 per cent increase in electric and heating bills unified opposition factions and galvanised support for them.

The unrest followed rising tensions between the opposition and Bakiyev's government, which they accuse of cracking down on independent media and fostering corruption.

Opposition leader Roza Otunbayeva, the former foreign minister, said parliament was dissolved and she would head the interim government. She said the new government controlled four of the seven provinces and called on President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to resign. "His business in Kyrgyzstan is finished," she said Thursday. By Thursday afternoon, there was no sign of Bakiyev. Otunbayeva said he had fled to the central region of Jalal-Abad, the heart of his political stronghold, to seek support. This raised some concerns that Bakiyev could try to exploit the country's traditional north-south split to secure his own survival.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. deplored the violence