Tag Archives: security

Kazakh court jails IS group

JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Aktobe, northern Kazakhstan, sentenced 12 people who had allegedly tried to join the ranks of the extremist IS group in February. The suspects received sentences of between 6 and 8 years in prison. The court said the group had tried to travel to Syria to join an IS training camp. Kazakhstan’s government has repeatedly emphasised its efforts towards combating Islamic extremism.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kyrgyz and Tajiks were part of airport attack, says Erdogan

BISHKEK, JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tajiks and Kyrgyz were part of the group that planned an attack on Istanbul airport last week, again highlighting the Central Asian link to radical Islam.

Turkish security forces have arrested around 30 people, including Kyrgyz and Tajiks, and accused them of plotting the attack that killed at least 44 people and wounded over 200 on June 28.

Mr Erdogan accused the IS radical group of the attack.

“We have arrested 30 people related to the terrorist attack. We are dealing with natives of Dagestan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,” Mr Erdogan said.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan said they would investigate Mr Erdogan’s accusations.

The Istanbul attack has highlighted Central Asia as a growing recruitment centre for Islamic extremists. It is unclear whether Central Asians become radicalised in their own country or in Russia, but their growing presence in Syria’s IS training camps is undisputed.

In an effort to crush radicalism, Central Asian governments have cracked down on Islamic opposition, including ordinary, peaceful and pious Muslims, often enflaming tension.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Obama and Putin discuss Azerbaijan and Armenia

JULY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin said they would intensify efforts to resolve the stand-off between Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The White House said Mr Obama and Mr Putin discussed the South Caucasus during a wide-ranging telephone conversation.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Turkey says two Kyrgyz and Uzbek citizens attacked Istanbul airport

BISHKEK, JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish security forces said that two of the three attackers at Istanbul’s international airport on Tuesday were from Central Asia, highlighting Islamic extremist recruitment in the region.

At least 44 people died and another 240 people were injured when the three attackers opened fire with machine guns outside the terminal building and then blew themselves up. Nobody has claimed responsibility, although the radical IS group is the main suspect.

The Turkish government has now said one of the attackers was from the North Caucasus and the others were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan has not commented; Kyrgyzstan initially denied a connection.

But analysts said that if two of the attackers were proved to be from Central Asia, it would show the increasingly effective recruitment network IS has developed in the region.

Anna Matveeva of King’s College London said Central Asia had become one of IS’s main recruitment pools because of its various social problems and the marginalisation of pious Muslims.

“Radicalisation and violence is definitely on the rise in Central Asia,” she said. “I think this phenomenon is growing.”

Central Asian governments are worried about the rise in IS recruitment in the area.

In 2015, a senior Tajik police commander defected to IS. Last month, the Kazakh government blamed an attack in Aktobe, in the northwest of the country, on a group which had links with Syria.

Analysts have said part of the problem is that security forces in Central Asia don’t coordinate effectively.

Kate Mallinson, a Central Asia analyst at London-based GPW, said if proved that two of the Istanbul attackers were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan there was likely to be a reaction by the security forces.

“The tragic attack in Istanbul will give the Central Asian governments further carte blanche in their application of punitive measures against Islamic movements in the Central Asian region,” she said.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Kazakh police arrests several men

JUNE 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Kazakhstan said they had arrested several men in two villages near Karaganda in the centre of the country as they prepared explosives for a terror attack. Kazakhstan’s security forces have been on high alert since a series of attacks in Aktobe at the start of June killed around two dozen people. Officials linked the attack to radical Islamists.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Pen Portrait: Kyrgyz rights activist: Azimzhan Askarov

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In Kyrgyzstan and abroad, Azimzhan Askarov divides opinion.

Charged with inciting ethnic hatred and participating in the murder of a police officer, Askarov was imprisoned for life in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after ethnic fighting killed nearly 400 people in the city of Osh.

It was a angry time, only a few months after a violent revolution, that enflamed historic, simmering tension between the two ethnic groups. Askarov’s supporters said that the charges had been fabricated and in July 2015, he received a human rights prize from the US State Department, an award that prompted the Kyrgyz government to downgrade diplomatic ties with Washington.

Now, after pressure from the UN, Kyrgyzstan has agreed to look again at his sentence.

Askarov, 65, was born in Kyrgyzstan into an Uzbek family. He studied in Tashkent before returning to Kyrgyzstan to work as a human rights advocate.

In 2002, Askarov founded the NGO Vozdukh (“air”) to investigate police brutality. According to local accounts, when challenged on why he had chosen to spend his life in the unglamorous, under-paid and dangerous world of human rights in Central Asia, he would say that “human rights are as indispensable as the air”.

Human rights lobby groups said at the time of his trial in 2010 that Askarov has been beaten and mistreated while in detention. Despite several attempts to reverse the sentence, the Supreme Court upheld the decision to keep Askarov in prison for life in 2011.

His supporters said that the state apparatus was working against him to crush a government opponent. The United States agreed but Kyrgyzstan wouldn’t budge. The tipping point came when the United Nations Human Rights Commission said that Askarov had been tortured and mistreated ahead of the trial and called the Kyrgyz authorities to release him.

Surprisingly, this time, the Kyrgyz Supreme Court listened and said it would look at the sentence again in July.

The question now, though, is whether the Supreme Court will seriously consider releasing Askarov over mistreatment before his trial in 2010, a move that would anger and irritate many Kyrgyz politicians who view him with suspicion.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Armenian MP’s approve Russian air defence deal

JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — MPs in Armenia approved the government’s decision to join its air defence system with Russia’s. The move pulls Armenia further into Russia’s sphere of influence. Russia already maintains one of its largest overseas bases in Armenia. It has been increasing cooperation with its neighbours since relations with the West deteriorated over fighting in Ukraine.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Georgia scraps army conscription

TBILISI, JUNE 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia will scrap conscription into its army in 2017, the first country in the South Caucasus and Central Asia to ditch this Soviet military legacy.

Ditching conscription is considered a major step by Georgia towards becoming a modern army fit to join NATO, one of its key policy objectives. In reality, its 37,000-person army had already been remade in the image of a professional Western army, carrying US-made weapons, wearing US-style uniforms and fighting alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan and the US in Iraq.

Only 10% of this standing army was made up of conscripts and they filled non-combat roles. It was also relatively easy to opt out of conscription. This contrasts with the rest of the region’s militaries which are still heavily reliant on conscription and are rife with allegations of bullying.

Defence minister Tina Khidasheli said she had ditched conscription, first discussed in 2013, because it was simply no longer needed.

“The Georgian Armed Forces do not need a service member brought in on a compulsory basis,” media quoted her as saying.

The ditching of conscription will only apply to the army and not to other security services run by the interior ministry or the prison service which are still reliant on conscripts.

And the decision to scrap conscription received a mixed response in Georgia. Some remembered the role that conscription had played in bolstering Georgia’s large reserve army, mobilised in its 2008 war with Russia.

“This decision, like others taken in this period, has been made only because of the election campaign,” a 26-year old man told The Conway Bulletin’s correspondent in Tbilisi.

Georgia holds a parliamentary election in October.

Others said scrapping conscription showed Georgia was progressing. “It sounds good that in our country military service is not mandatory and we are not getting ready for a war,” said another 31-year-old man.

“This somehow emphasises that Georgia is a peaceful country.”

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Ukraine security forces arrest two Tajik men

JUNE 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Security forces in Ukraine arrested two Tajik men at Kharkiv airport for allegedly being members of the radical IS group, media reported. According to reports, the men were returning to Tajikistan from Syria via Turkey and Ukraine. They planned to target various sites with bombs. Governments in Central Asia are concerned about growing IS influence.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Two Kyrgyzstani die in Istanbul attack

JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two of the 44 people who died in an attack on Istanbul airport by three suspected Islamic extremists were from Kyrgyzstan, media reported. Passengers for a flight to Bishkek were checking in when the three attackers opened fire on a terminal building and then detonated suicide bombs.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)