JUNE 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish security forces extradited to Kazakhstan a Kazakh national wanted in connection with a series of explosions in the town of Atyrau on the Caspian Sea coast in 2011, media reported. Kazakhstan is trying to stem attacks liked to militant Islam. This extradition will be viewed as a success.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 20 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to close a US airbase outside Bishkek by July 2014. Kyrgyzstan has threatened to close the airbase for years but the decision will still irritate the US ahead of a planned military withdrawal from Afghanistan through Central Asia in 2014.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Irakli Alasania, Georgia’ defence minister, said the two military bases in Afghanistan where suicide bombers have killed 10 Georgian soldiers in the past month would close. He said the closures would improve security but none of the 1,500 Georgian soldiers would be withdrawn.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
JUNE 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurtai Abykayev, the 76-year-old head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence agencies, is experienced, calculating and a close confident of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
He would have weighed up the implications of telling a group of journalists on the sidelines of a meeting in Kazan, Russia, of intelligence chiefs from across the former Soviet Union that there were an estimated 100 Kazakhs training in militant camps in southern Afghanistan.
What he wanted to gain by releasing this figure is still unclear. Does he consider this a small or large number? Certainly global attention on defeating radical Islam has re-focused on Central Asia since a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers with links to Kyrgyzstan bombed the Boston marathon in April.
Since 2011 Kazakhstan has been trying to quell its own Islamic militant insurgency. It has blamed a series of bomb attacks on radical Islamists and locked up several dozen young men with apparent links to these militant groups.
Mr Abykayev may also have been trying to warn of the perils that Central Asia faces from 2014 when NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan and the Taliban are able to roam north.
Russia has been constantly voicing concern about the threat from militants once the NATO soldiers leave. Mr Abykayev may be adding Kazakhstan’s voice to these concerns.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
JUNE 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has made joining NATO, the US-led military alliance, one of the cornerstones of his foreign policy.
Mr Saakashvili has vigorously supported NATO’s war in Afghanistan. There was no internal threat to Georgia from Islamic radicals trained by the Taliban, the initial reason for Western armies to march into Afghanistan. Mr Saakashvili’s motive was purely geo-political.
Georgia has 1,600 soldiers in Afghanistan, the highest number of all non-NATO members, stationed mainly in Helmand province, one of the more restless areas. Considering the commitment, Georgian casualties had been relatively light. That, though, has changed.
On June 6, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Georgian military base, killing seven soldiers. This was the largest single loss of life to NATO forces this year. Last month three Georgian soldiers died in a similar attack. Since 2010, 27 Georgian soldiers have died in Afghanistan, according to the website icasualties.org.
The official reaction was one of defiance and Georgia’s defence minister Irakli Alasania broke off a trip to Brussels to visit soldiers in Afghanistan. On the streets of Tbilisi support for the war is still strong too but this may be beginning to change.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
JUNE 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Atyrau, west Kazakhstan, sentenced eight men to jail for terrorism related offences and links to radical Islamic groups, media reported. Seven of the men received prison sentences of 18 – 23 years. One received a one-year suspended sentence.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 138, published on June 10 2013)
MAY 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Over the past couple of years, NATO has slowly been building relations with Uzbekistan. The Western military alliance needs Uzbekistan’s help to pull kit and equipment out of neighbouring Afghanistan.
Deals have been made ahead of the military pull-out, scheduled for 2013 and 2014, and promises of friendships pledged.
Now NATO plans to open an office in Tashkent, media reported. NATO said the move was planned as part of a rotational policy and the office was simply moving from Astana to Tashkent. Maybe, but the timing is also good for NATO. They have to coordinate pulling out hundreds of military vehicles across Uzbekistan to Russia over the next couple of years. They also have to work out what kit to leave behind in Uzbekistan.
Dealing with Uzbekistan is tricky. It was only a few years ago, when the West didnít need its support for their war in Afghanistan, that Uzbekistan was considered a pariah state with a distasteful human rights record.
Eurasianet quoted a NATO spokesperson as saying that the office in Tashkent would open up in either June or July and that it would have diplomatic status.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 137, published on June 3 2013)
MAY 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Since the bombing of the Boston marathon in April, radical Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus has attracted increased scrutiny.
The two Tsarnaev brothers who allegedly planted the bombs were of Chechen ethnicity but part raised in Kyrgyzstan.
Central Asia has been combating extremists for years but the potential export of radicalism is relatively new.
One of the regions considered most vulnerable to radical Islamic ideas is western Kazakhstan which has a large population of poor and relatively disenfranchised young men.
The trial of six men accused of plotting to attack targets in Astana opened last week, and on May 21 the trial of another eight men accused of links with radical Islamic groups started in Atyrau on the Caspian Sea.
Now, media have reported that the Kazakh authorities have announced that another 200b tenge (roughly $13m) would be spent on combating the growth of Islamic extremism in the west of the country.
A lack of opportunities is just one of the issues driving young men in the west of Kazakhstan to extremists but Nurdaulet Suindikov, the government official who announced the funding increase, said security, rather than welfare and jobs, would be the focus of the extra spending.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 136, published on May 27 2013)
MAY 20 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Britain will pay Kazakhstan between $300,000 and $400,000 a year to shift military equipment across its territory, media quoted Kazakh deputy foreign minister Aleksei Volkov as saying. NATO members have been agreeing deals with Central Asian states to help pull military equipment out of Afghanistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 136, published on May 27 2013)
MAY 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Wearing camouflaged military uniform, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev took the salute at the largest parade by Kazakhstan’s military. Increasingly wealthy, Kazakhstan wants to show off its military might. Over 7,000 soldiers, 400 vehicles and 80 aircraft paraded in front of Mr Nazarbayev at a military base.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)