APRIL 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Speaking to parliament, Georgian defence minister Levan Izoria said that the Georgian military intended to sell its 12 Su-25 Soviet-era jets and use the cash raised to buy helicopters and drones. The Georgian military said earlier in the year that it was going to ditch using fighter jets altogether.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan, currently a non- permanent member of the UN Security Council, and the host of talks on the Syrian civil war attended by Russia, Iran, Turkey and various Syrian factions called for an independent investigation into allegations that Syrian forces dropped chemical bombs onto a town in the south of the country at the start of the month. Syria, backed by its ally Russia, has denied the accusations.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that people convicted of fighting for IS would be stripped of their Kazakh citizenship. The Kazinform news agency also quoted Mr Nazarbayev as saying that between 500 and 600 Kazakhs had headed off to join IS over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A combat training centre for the Georgian army will be built near Tbilisi with help from the US, media reported quoting defence minister Levan Izoria. Georgia has been promoting itself through its military. It has sent soldiers to support US-led missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ultimately, Georgia wants to join NATO.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish police arrested a 39-year-old Uzbek man and accused him of hijacking a truck which he then drove into a department store in central Stockholm, killing four people.
The unnamed man was the second Central Asian to be accused of attacking and killing civilians in a week. On April 3 an Uzbek man from Kyrgyzstan blew himself up on the St Petersburg metro, killing 15 people.
The attack in Sweden has again turned the international spotlight onto Central Asia as a fertile recruitment ground for the radical IS group.
Analysts and experts have said much of the IS recruitment occurs in Russia where young men from Central Asia move to find work.
Central Asia’s leaders have been talking up the difficulties of stopping recruitment drives by the IS extremist group. Last year, on a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Bishkek, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev said that the recruitment system was proving more robust than anticipated.
Last week, in the aftermath of the St Petersburg attack, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev pledged to crackdown on terrorist recruitment.
“What happened in St. Petersburg is a terrorist attack and terrorism does not have any borders, nationality or faith. This is our common pain, and this signals that we need to join forces here,” he was quoted as saying.
Details of the Swedish attacker are still emerging but media has reported that he was a failed asylum seeker who had been marked down for deportation. He avoided police, though, by giving them a false address and moving to a suburb of Stockholm known for its migrant communities.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
BISHKEK, APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Scrutiny of Central Asia as a breeding ground for Islamic extremists intensified after Russian security forces named 22-year-old Akbarzhon Jalilov from Kyrgyzstan as the suicide bomber who killed at least 14 people on Monday on the St Petersburg metro.
In the 48 hours following the attack, Russian police detained six people from Central Asia who they said were recruiting for the IS extremist group. Russia is a major destination for migrant workers from Central Asia and a vital source of remittance flows.
One of the 14 people confirmed dead in the bomb attack was a Kazakh national who had been studying in St Petersburg.
In Kyrgyzstan, people were split on the implications of the St Petersburg bomb. Many people worried about a backlash against Kyrgyz migrant workers in Russia.
“The terrorist act has caused damage to our country’s image. All over the world, they now write that the terrorist was from Kyrgyzstan,” Azamat, from Karakol in eastern Kyrgyzstan, said. “Now, many of our migrants in the Russian Federation will be affected by the terrorist attack. There will be daily inspections and other actions [by police].”
Jalilov, the alleged suicide bomber, was an ethnic Uzbek of Kyrgyz nationality who was brought up in Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan. Media reports, though, said that he had been living in Russia for a few years and had taken Russian citizenship. Earlier this year an Uzbek man was arrested in Istanbul for killing at 39 people at a nightclub on New Year’s eve.
In 2016, security forces said 600 Kyrgyz travelled to Syria to join IS and many people in Bishkek were worried that these people were returning and spreading extreme ideology.
“Radical Islam is guilty of this bombing. Some people go abroad to receive religious education, are recruited by radicals and come back,” said Dmitry, 36.
Central Asia is the focus of a debate over whether it has become the main recruiting ground for IS.
Those that say it has, have said the mix of frustrated young men with little prospects, the rise of militant Islam and the harsh tactics used by the security forces are pushing people into the arms of extremists.
Others have said this description is overblown. Edward Lemon, a research scholar at Columbia University specialising in extremism in Central Asia, said the region is not providing IS with a flow of recruits.
“These isolated attacks do not necessarily indicate that Central Asia is becoming a hotbed of extremism. In fact, the evidence suggests a slowing of the flow of recruits to IS and al-Nusra in recent months,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
APRIL 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik government has been campaigning for women in Tajikistan to wear traditional brightly-coloured flowing dresses in an effort to dampen the rise in popularity of Islamic headscarves and hijabs, the AFP news agency reported. Tajikistan’s government is increasingly worried about the popularity of extremist Islamic ideology and the drift of many young men towards joining the radical IS group in Syria and Iraq.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
MARCH 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s security forces are spying on exiled Uzbeks across Europe in order to intimidate and create a climate of fear, the London- based human rights organisation Amnesty International said in a new report. It accused the Uzbek government of creating a Soviet-like atmosphere of fear and repression inside and outside Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
MARCH 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In the run-up to the 34th round of bilateral talks in Geneva between Georgia and Russia, the Russian foreign ministry accused its Georgian counterparts of a series of provocative statements designed to undermine the talks. The Geneva talks have been a vital part of the reconciliation process between Russia and Georgia since a war in 2008.
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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)
MARCH 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan and Russia started a four day military exercise near the border with Afghanistan in a show of force designed to demonstrate the resolve of the two countries and the strength of their alliance. Media reports said that the military exercise involved 40,000 Tajik soldiers, 2,000 Russian soldiers and several hundred tanks and artillery pieces. Russia has said it is worried about the potential of Taliban encroachment into Tajikistan from Afghanistan.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)