NATO on Thursday hailed the willingness of ex-Soviet Central Asia to take part in \"a united front against terrorism\", but said this fight must not be used by local rulers as a pretext to stifle domestic opposition. \"Terrorism is a clear threat to people in this region,\" George Robertson, Secretary General of the defense alliance told a news conference during a brief visit to Kazakhstan. \"Terrorists confront free society in a way that we have never seen before. We must have a common united front against terrorism. \"But we must not do so at the expense of the liberties of free society which the terrorists would attack,\" Robertson said in answer to a question about a clampdown on human rights in Uzbekistan. Most of the authoritarian regimes in the five countries making up the vast, resource-rich region sprawling between Russia and China have enthusiastically embraced the U.S.-led war on terror in their unstable neighboring Afghanistan. But their poor human rights records are widely seen as having deteriorated since the attacks on U.S. cities on September 11 2001, after which the region\'s leaders gave vital support, including the use of airbases, to Washington. Uzbekistan, the most populous Islamic ex-Soviet state, boasts cordial ties with the United States, which keeps an unspecified number of troops at an airbase there. But human rights watchdogs and Western governments are harshly critical of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, saying he exploits the threat of religious extremism to crack down on internal dissent. Human rights groups believe at least 10 people have died in Uzbek jails from torture since the September 11 attacks, and the United Nations says the use of torture there is systemic. (Reuters)