Tag Archives: Islamic extremism

ICG says inequalities are a problem for Kazakhstan

OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan may look like a stable and prosperous nation, the influential Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) wrote in a new report, but this glossy facade hides serious structural problems.

The ICG report is a rare foray into Kazakhstan. The think tank normally concentrates on Kazakhstan’s more obviously problematic southern Central Asian neighbours.

And that’s really the point that the ICG makes. Kazakhstan may look different from the rest of Central Asia but its energy wealth is hiding very similar problems.

These are, the report said, an aging autocratic leader without a proper succession plan, official corruption, spreading Islamic extremism and a yawning inequality gap.

Kazakh officials point to the country’s rise through various global indexes but the ICG was unequivocal.

“Kazakhstan risks becoming just another Central Asian authoritarian regime that squandered the advantages bestowed on it by abundant natural resources,” it said.

Perhaps the least documented of these issues is the inequality gap. Astana and Almaty are booming. It doesn’t take long, though, for the landscape to change.

“Many rural residents learn only from state television that they live in a prosperous energy-rich country,” the ICG wrote. “Residents of a small village only 60km from Astana do not have a regular supply of drinking water in the winter and say the authorities have ignored their situation for years.”

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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Trial begins for Islamic extremists in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Atyrau, near Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea coast, began the trial of nine people for allegedly plotting attacks and being members of a banned Islamic extremist organisation, media reported. Kazakhstan has been combating a rise in attacks linked to militant Islamic groups since 2010.

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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)

Islamic militants’ plot foiled in Kyrgyzstan

SEPT. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Osh, south Kyrgyzstan, arrested three Islamic militants — two Kyrgyz and one Kazakh — who had returned from fighting in Syria and were planning a series of attacks, the Kyrgyz National Security Committee said. Reports from Syria say that men from Central Asia were fighting for radical Islamist groups.

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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)

Islamists jailed in Kazakhstan

AUG. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court sentenced six radical Islamists to up to 10 years in jail for plotting attacks against senior officials. Kazakhstan has been trying to quell a surge in attacks linked to radical Islamists over the past three years. Reports said the group plotted suicide attacks on major public buildings.

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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)

Turkey extradites a Kazakh national

JUNE 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish security forces extradited to Kazakhstan a Kazakh national wanted in connection with a series of explosions in the town of Atyrau on the Caspian Sea coast in 2011, media reported. Kazakhstan is trying to stem attacks liked to militant Islam. This extradition will be viewed as a success.

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(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)

100 Kazakh radicals training in Afghanistan

JUNE 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurtai Abykayev, the 76-year-old head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence agencies, is experienced, calculating and a close confident of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

He would have weighed up the implications of telling a group of journalists on the sidelines of a meeting in Kazan, Russia, of intelligence chiefs from across the former Soviet Union that there were an estimated 100 Kazakhs training in militant camps in southern Afghanistan.

What he wanted to gain by releasing this figure is still unclear. Does he consider this a small or large number? Certainly global attention on defeating radical Islam has re-focused on Central Asia since a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers with links to Kyrgyzstan bombed the Boston marathon in April.

Since 2011 Kazakhstan has been trying to quell its own Islamic militant insurgency. It has blamed a series of bomb attacks on radical Islamists and locked up several dozen young men with apparent links to these militant groups.

Mr Abykayev may also have been trying to warn of the perils that Central Asia faces from 2014 when NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan and the Taliban are able to roam north.

Russia has been constantly voicing concern about the threat from militants once the NATO soldiers leave. Mr Abykayev may be adding Kazakhstan’s voice to these concerns.

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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)

Mass terrorism sentence in Western Kazakhstan

JUNE 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Atyrau, west Kazakhstan, sentenced eight men to jail for terrorism related offences and links to radical Islamic groups, media reported. Seven of the men received prison sentences of 18 – 23 years. One received a one-year suspended sentence.

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(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)

Kazakhstan funds fight against radical Islam

MAY 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Since the bombing of the Boston marathon in April, radical Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus has attracted increased scrutiny.

The two Tsarnaev brothers who allegedly planted the bombs were of Chechen ethnicity but part raised in Kyrgyzstan.

Central Asia has been combating extremists for years but the potential export of radicalism is relatively new.

One of the regions considered most vulnerable to radical Islamic ideas is western Kazakhstan which has a large population of poor and relatively disenfranchised young men.

The trial of six men accused of plotting to attack targets in Astana opened last week, and on May 21 the trial of another eight men accused of links with radical Islamic groups started in Atyrau on the Caspian Sea.

Now, media have reported that the Kazakh authorities have announced that another 200b tenge (roughly $13m) would be spent on combating the growth of Islamic extremism in the west of the country.

A lack of opportunities is just one of the issues driving young men in the west of Kazakhstan to extremists but Nurdaulet Suindikov, the government official who announced the funding increase, said security, rather than welfare and jobs, would be the focus of the extra spending.

(News report from Issue No. 136, published on May 27 2013)

US police arrest alleged Uzbek extremist

MAY 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in the US arrested an Uzbek man on suspicion of links to Islamic extremists, barely a month after two ethnic Chechen brothers, who were brought up in Kyrgyzstan, allegedly bombed the Boston marathon. The new arrest appears unrelated to the Boston bombs but will again draw Central Asia into the spotlight.

(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)

Trial of Islamic terrorists begins in Kazakhstan

MAY 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial of six men accused of links to radical Islamic groups and of plotting to blow up landmarks and assassinate senior officials began in Astana. The trial is being held behind closed doors. Kazakhstan has been battling an increase in Islamist-linked bomb attacks since 2011.

(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)