Dissidents in Turkmenistan now face a greater risk of government reprisals such as arbitrary detention and torture following a failed assassination attempt on President Saparmurad Niyazov on Monday, the Open Society Institute says.

Unidentified assailants opened fire on a car carrying the President early Monday morning in an attack that left at least one person dead and Niyazov unharmed, according to news agency reports.

The attack comes as President Niyazov is waging a brutal campaign of repression against the remnants of civil society that he has not managed to silence.

"Judging from his track record, President Niyazov is likely to use the assassination attempt as a pretext to lash out at any opponents, real or imaginary," said Erika Dailey, Director of the Open Society Institute's Turkmenistan Project.

"The attack is illegal and should be condemned. At the same time, it must be understood as an extreme response to repression. Normal channels for addressing popular grievances have been cut off for almost a decade. The assassination attempt is a possible indicator of the violent desperation that President Niyazov's policies has created," said Dailey, whose Turkmenistan Project is part of the Central Eurasia Project.

Niyazov was Turkmenistan's leading politician in the Soviet era. He headed the Communist Party of the Soviet republic of Turkmenistan and became the Central Asian republic's first president after it gained independence in 1991. Under his rule, Turkmenistan, home to the world's fourth largest natural gas reserves, has stagnated economically. Niyazov's rule is marked by corruption, inflexible fiscal and social policies, censorship and repression of dissidents and their families. State-sponsored social benefits, such as free natural gas for every citizen, mask widespread poverty. The construction of presidential monuments is just one hallmark of the cult of personality that Niyazov has engendered.

"In the past, the government has arbitrarily detained and imprisoned civic and politically active individuals and their associates, razed their houses, and locked them up in psychiatric institutions. We must be vigilant to insure that this genuine criminal act not be misused to discredit or punish peaceful dissent inside the country."