DEC. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh security forces arrested 16 people for allegedly stirring ethnic hatred and belonging to terrorist groups in four coordinated raids across the country. The Kazakh government has blamed radical Islamists for trying to recruit young men into the ranks of IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Moscow said that they had arrested citizens of Moldova and Tajikistan who had been planning a series of attacks. Security services said that the men were linked to the radical IS group and had been acting under the orders of a commander based in Turkey. Intelligence agencies worry that Central Asia has become a key recruiting ground for IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Aktobe, west Kazakhstan, sentenced seven men who shot dead eight people in a series of attacks earlier this year to life jail sentences. Eighteen more people who helped the group were given between two and five year prison sentences. The judge described the men, who attacked a police outpost, as Islamic extremists.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Astana sentenced a man to six years in jail for promoting literature supporting IS in Syria. The unnamed man reportedly encouraged his followers on social media sites to join him in Syria to fight for IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish security services arrested three dozen men from Central Asia and the South Caucasus who, they said, were working for the extremist IS group and had been planning a series of suicide attacks in Turkey’s biggest city. They said that the ringleaders were an Uzbek man and a Tajik man. Governments from Central Asia and the South Caucasus are increasingly concerned about their citizens heading to Syria to fight for IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
NOV. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s defence minister Colonel-General Berdiyev Yaylym Yagmyrovich flew to Rawalpindi in Pakistan to meet with the head of the Pakistani army General Raheel Sharif, media reported. According to the reports the main focus of the trip was regional security and the growth of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The meeting is important because it is more evidence that Turkmenistan, normally reclusive and proudly neutral, is increasingly concerned about regional stability.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Baku jailed seven men for fighting for the radical IS group in Syria. Countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have been fighting to contain a recruitment drive by IS in the region. The men were jailed for between 2-1/2 and 14 years. They had been arrested once they returned home from fighting with IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A senior Afghan army commander in the north of Afghanistan said that the Taliban was encouraging Uzbek and Tajik radical militants to infiltrate Central Asia. The Pajhwork reported that Lt. Gen. Sher Aziz Kamawal had said that the Taliban was using instability in Kunduz region, on the border with Uzbekistan, as a launchpad for militants to move into Central Asia. Governments in Central Asia have been increasingly concerned about Taliban encroachment north.
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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)
NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US embassy in Dushanbe issued a warning that Islamic militants were planning to attack large gatherings and kidnap people near the border with Afghanistan.
It said US citizens should avoid crowds and refrain from camping near the border.
“Terrorist groups may attempt to target large public gatherings and/or border crossings with Afghanistan,” it said in a statement.
The warnings comes a month after a similar warning was released in Kyrgyzstan. Governments in Central Asia have been worried both by a rise in the intensity of recruitment drives by the IS extremist group and by the encroachment north of the Taliban.
The US embassy did not give any more details of the threats or what had triggered the warning.
Media later quoted an official from the Tajik government as saying that the warning was overblown and that there was no threat to Tajiks or foreigners.
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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)
NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty sentenced Ruslan Kulekbayev to death for killing 10 people during a shooting spree earlier this year. Like Russia, Kazakhstan has a moratorium on the death sentence and Kulekbayev will instead serve a life sentence. If the moratorium is lifted, though, he will be placed on Death Row. Kulekbayev had previously said that his shooting spree in July, which started with the murder of a prostitute in the southern city of Shymkent, was a personal form of revenge against a society which he felt had rejected him. The court, though, said that he was an Islamic extremist.
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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)