SEPT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulmurod Khalimov, the former head of Tajikistan’s special police force and a US-trained sniper, was named top commander in Iraq by the extremist IS group. Khalimov defected to the IS last year. In August, the US State Department placed a reward of up to $3m for information on the location of Khalimov.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
BISHKEK, SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — – Kyrgyzstan’s Security Service accused Uyghur militants of organising an attack on the Chinese embassy in Bishkek in last month.
Specifically the Security Service said the Uyghur group that financed the attack was based out of Syria, suggesting a potential link with the extremist IS group.
The attacker, the only casualty of the attack, was identified as an Uyghur with a Tajik passport who was linked to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) separatist group.
Chinese officials said they were satisfied with Kyrgyzstan’s findings and that they consider militant Uyghurs, an ethnic group based mainly in China’s western region of Xinjiang province, to be a terrorist organisation.
“I want to stress that East Turkestan terrorist forces representing ETIM have planned and carried out many terrorist incidents targeting China inside and outside the country and committed bloody crimes,” Reuters reported Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying as saying.
Uyghur groups have said that they are now worried that China will use the attack in Bishkek to crackdown on Uyghurs. They say that the Chinese repress them and their culture.
There are significant Uyghur groups living in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. A Canadian diplomatic report in 2012 said that 50,000 lived in Kyrgyzstan.
Last week, a suicide bomber drove a car through the gates of the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, the first direct attack against China’s diplomatic missions in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
The Security Service said that the support network for the attacker was local, as the car belonged to an ethnic Uzbek with a Tajik passport living in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Azerbaijani sentence two men to 13 and 14-1/2 years in prison for fighting for the extremist IS group in Syria. Governments in the S.Caucasus have been clamping down on IS recruitment.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kyrgyz court sentenced opposition figure and IS sympathiser Nurlan Mutoyev to seven years in jail after he was found guilty of terrorism and inciting ethnic hatred. In May, Mutoyev was arrested after a rally in Bishkek. He stands for the establishment of the strict Islamic Shari’a law in Kyrgyzstan. His arrest was triggered by his open support for the IS group during the rally.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
BISHKEK, AUG. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An unidentified suicide bomber drove a car through the Chinese embassy gates in southern Bishkek, blowing up the front of the diplomatic compound and injuring three Kyrgyz workers, in what analysts have described as the first terror attack on a Chinese diplomatic post in Central Asia.
China’s foreign ministry urged an investigation and suspended visa services for Kyrgyz nationals seeking to enter China. In a statement Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, urged the Kyrgyz government to quickly track down the perpetrators of the attack.
“(I) asked the Kyrgyz side to find out the truth as soon as possible, punish those responsible and avoid a reoccurrence of such attacks,” he said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Some analysts said that Kyrgyzstan’s small community of Uyghurs, which call for independence for China’s western Xinjiang region may have been behind the attack.
Others said that the radical IS group, which has strengthened its recruiting network in the region, were behind the attack.
China has followed the US over the past few years and has increasingly pulled its embassies out of busy city centres towards suburban sites which can fit a larger premises and can be more easily protected.
In 2010, the Chinese embassy in Bishkek was expanded and moved to one of these new style compounds built on the edge of the city.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
AUG. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US State Department placed a reward of up to $3m for information on the location of Gulmurod Khalimov, the former head of Tajikistan’s special police force and a US-trained sniper defected to the IS extremist group last year. Shortly after arriving in Syria, Mr Khalimov was injured in an airstrike but has seemingly recovered and been promoted within IS to a senior command position.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — People in Batken, south-western Kyrgyzstan, burned a government poster aimed at countering the growth of radical Islam which showed Kyrgyz women in traditional clothes transitioning into women wearing a full, black burqa. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev unveiled the poster this month as part of the fight against a recruitment drive in Central Asia by the radical IS group. The poster has proved controversial in Kyrgyzstan because of accusations that it is stigmatising conservative Muslims.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Petropavlovsk, in northern Kazakhstan, sentenced a man to seven years in prison for joining the IS extremist group. According to the court, the man travelled to Syria in 2012. Warning of a growing IS recruitment drive, Kazakhstan’s security services have said they will intensify their clampdown on Islamic extremism.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian defence minister Sergei Shiogu said that if countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus ever sink into Syria-like civil war scenarios, Russia will use its military to intervene. Russia has carried out airstrikes in Syria against the IS extremist group. According to official sources, the number of South Caucasus and Central Asian citizens fighting for IS in Syria is rising.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Tajik court jailed Mukhammadi Rakhmatullo, alleged leader of Salafi, a banned conservative Islamic movement in Tajikistan, for seven years in prison. Rakhmatullo had allegedly returned to Tajikistan after a period working abroad and had continued to run the banned Salafi opposition movement. He was arrested in February during a mass security operation that jailed dozens of Salafists.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)