APRIL 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik forces have killed an Islamic militant leader and at least 10 of his fighters, the ASIA-Plus website reported. The government has fought Abdullo Rakhimov and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) since September when they ambushed an army column and killed at least 28 soldiers.
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(News report from Issue No. 36, published on April 18 2011)
MARCH 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Masked police raided several Turkish businesses in Tashkent including one of the city’s biggest supermarket Turkuaz, media reported. The authorities said the businesses were fronts for Islamic extremism, accusations the businesses deny. The raids follow similar action against Turkish business in December and may be part of turf war.
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(News report from Issue No. 31, published on March 14 2011)
FEB. 23 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – German prosecutors said they had arrested two German nationals involved with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which is linked to al-Qaeda, media reported. The IMU is blamed for a number of attacks in Central Asia and Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 29, published on Feb. 28 2011)
FEB. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nearly all Tajikistan’s 7.5m people are Muslim and the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) is the only political party in Central Asia linked to religion, but over the last few months the authorities have steadily increased pressure on Islam and practicing Muslims.
Last year Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon called for hundreds of students enrolled at madrases in Egypt and Pakistan to return home to stop them from becoming radicalised and the authorities have closed dozens of what they say are unregistered religious schools and mosques. Police have raided the IRPT which they accuse of having links to extremists and its cultural centre burnt down in a mysterious fire.
Wearing a beard is now also a problem. Local media reports are full of accounts of police stopping bearded men on the street and accusing them of being Islamic extremists.
The pressure is linked to the government’s battle against insurgents in the Rasht Valley to the south of the capital, Dushanbe. Since September 2010, when extremists killed at least 25 soldiers in an ambush, Tajik forces have poured into the Rasht Valley to hunt down al-Qaeda-linked fighters.
The authorities say as well as fighting these insurgents in the mountains, they also have to stop them from enrolling recruits from the towns and cities.
But that’s just the problem, say many analysts. They say that poverty and the authorities’ heavy-handedness are driving young men in Tajikistan — which borders Afghanistan and is a key part of the NATO supply chain — to the extremists.
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(News report from Issue No. 26, published on Feb. 7 2011)
FEB. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s biggest Islamic party said unknown assailants had beaten one of its senior members, Umarali Khisainov, near his home. Media reports said Mr Khisainov was now in hospital. The Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan has come under increased pressure since last year when the government intensified fighting against Islamic extremists.
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(News report from Issue No. 26, published on Feb. 7 2011)
JAN. 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz police said they had arrested three Kazakhs in Bishkek on suspicion of plotting to bomb a business centre. This is the first time that Kazakhs have been directly implicated in the growing violence in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 24, published on Jan. 24 2011)
JAN. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Since 2009 the Kyrgyz security forces have reported a rise in the number of gun battles they have fought with suspected Islamic extremists.
These shootouts and bomb attacks had mainly been confined to Kyrgyzstan’s poorer south.
But the gun attack that killed three policemen in Bishkek on Jan. 4 appears to add to recent insurgent attacks in the Kyrgyz capital which hosts a major US airbase and is only a few hours drive from Almaty in Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s financial centre. Certainly, the authorities were quick to blame Islamic extremists for the attack.
And the shootout follows two earlier attacks in Bishkek — a failed car bomb outside police headquarters on Dec. 25 and a bomb that exploded in the centre of the city on Nov. 30 and injured several people, days before the arrival of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Kyrgyz authorities often blame the attacks on the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which has close links with al-Qaeda. The initial NATO surge into Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 heavily damaged the IMU but over the last couple of years it has grown in strength.
The IMU and other Islamic radical groups have increased attacks in Central Asia over the last couple of years mainly attacking security forces in Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan.
With the latest attacks in Bishkek this violence appears to be creeping towards the heart of Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
JAN. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s security forces killed eight rebels in a gun battle about 200km south of the capital Dushanbe, media quoted government officials as saying. They linked the rebels to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and said the group’s leader had organised a bomb attack in September that killed 28 Tajik policemen.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
JAN. 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gunmen killed three policemen during a routine document inspection in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. The security forces blamed Islamic extremists for the attack and the following day tracked down suspected gunmen to a house outside Bishkek. Two rebels and another policeman died in a gunfight at the house.
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(News report from Issue No. 22, published on Jan. 11 2011)
DEC. 25 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Kyrgyzstan said they had foiled a car bomb outside Bishkek’s police headquarters. Media quoted the head of the National Security Committee saying that nine Kyrgyz citizens, described as militant Islamists, had been detained in connection with the foiled bomb attack.
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(News report from Issue No. 21, published on Jan. 4 2011)