Kyrgyzstan says uncovers al Qaeda cell

BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan said on Tuesday it had uncovered a group of al Qaeda agents operating in the impoverished Central Asian state.

Kyrgyzstan is home to a U.S. military airbase used to support U.S. military operations in nearby Afghanistan.

A source in the parliament told Reuters the country's Financial Intelligence Service, which oversees anti-money laundering activities, had uncovered several al Qaeda agents.

The head of the Financial Intelligence Service, Maksatbek Sadyrov, made the announcement at a parliament sitting, the source said.

"He said (the last) al Qaeda agent had been uncovered last Friday," the source said.

The Financial Intelligence Service and the State Security Committee declined to comment on Sadyrov's speech.

Kyrgyzstan, a Muslim nation which has been unstable since 2005 when its current president came to power, lies on one of the routes for smuggling drugs out of Afghanistan to Europe.

Its authorities have long accused unspecified "terrorists" of trying to destabilize the situation in the country.

(Reporting by Olga Dzuibenko)