MAY 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in the US arrested an Uzbek man on suspicion of links to Islamic extremists, barely a month after two ethnic Chechen brothers, who were brought up in Kyrgyzstan, allegedly bombed the Boston marathon. The new arrest appears unrelated to the Boston bombs but will again draw Central Asia into the spotlight.
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(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)
MAY 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three Georgian soldiers died in Afghanistan when a suicide bomber attacked their base in Helmand province in the south of the country, media reported. Pro-West Georgia has been a stalwart supporter of NATO’s war in Afghanistan. Media reported that 22 Georgian soldiers have now died in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)
MAY 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial of six men accused of links to radical Islamic groups and of plotting to blow up landmarks and assassinate senior officials began in Astana. The trial is being held behind closed doors. Kazakhstan has been battling an increase in Islamist-linked bomb attacks since 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 135, published on May 20 2013)
MAY 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The arrest of two Kazakh teenagers studying in the US with links to one of the alleged Boston bombers has triggered a major image problem for Kazakhstan.
Prosecutors in Boston charged Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both 19-years old, with obstructing the course of justice by trying to dispose of a rucksack and a laptop belonging to their friend, Dzhokhar Tsarnayev.
Three people died when Tsarnayev and his brother allegedly planted a series of bombs at the finishing line of the Boston marathon in April.
Now Kazakhstan has been dragged into the story.
But, while Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were university friends of Tsarnayev their backgrounds were very different. Tsarnayev, an ethnic Chechen, was an economic migrant who had settled in the US to build a better life.
Both Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were ethnic Kazakhs from relatively privileged backgrounds. Both were enjoying a relaxed period of study in Boston before heading home.
Regardless of the differences, Kazakhstan now has to deal with the image problem of Kazakhs caught up with bomb attacks in the US.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
MAY 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – A US refuelling aircraft crashed in Kyrgyzstan, killing all three crew members. The aircraft had taken off from the US airbase outside Bishkek. Some media reports said the plane exploded in mid-air before crashing into the ground near the border with Kazakhstan in the north of the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
MAY 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Boston arrested two 19-year-old students from Kazakhstan and charged them with conspiring to obstruct justice by tampering with a computer and a backpack containing fireworks that had belonged to one of the alleged marathon bombers.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
ALMATY/Kazakhstan, APRIL 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tsarnaev brothers, blamed for bombing the Boston marathon earlier this month, were ethnic Chechens, brought up in Kyrgyzstan who apparently learnt about radical Islam in Dagestan.
This link, between radical Islamic ideas in Russia’s North Caucasus and Central Asia, can’t be ignored. Domestic security in Central Asia and NATO’s main route for withdrawing its equipment from Afghanistan are potentially vulnerable.
But, although bomb attacks blamed on radical Islamists, increased in 2010 and 2011 in Kazakhstan, several Almaty-based analysts said the impact of radical Islamic ideology from the North Caucasus on Central Asia should not be overstated.
“Today there is no direct connection reported between the insurgency in North Caucasus and terrorist acts taking place in Kazakhstan,” Zhulduz Baizakov, a Kazakhstan-based analyst, said.
“The ideology, methods and purposes are different.”
Instead, analysts said that the radicalising influence from the Arabian peninsula and Afghanistan was more important than from the North Caucasus.
But the North Caucasus’ brand of radical Islam is accessible. It’s also worrying the Kazakh security forces. They are concerned with both the trickle of young Kazakh men fighting with rebels in Dagestan and the emergence of Islamic literature from the North Caucasus in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkey signed up to become a so-called dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group led by China and Russia that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Belarus and Sri Lanka already hold the same status with the SCO but Turkey is a NATO member and that makes its partnership more important. Analysts have often described the SCO as a potential Chinese and Russian-led military rival to NATO.
This analysis of the SCO, though, is too simplistic. The SCO is more than just a security group. It is also a financing organisation and a forum for inter-governmental conversation and debate.
Turkey, too, has deep economic, historical, cultural and linguistic ties with Central Asia, the focus of the SCO’s activities. Turkish senior governments ministers often visit the Central Asia capitals and it is only natural that Turkey should look to become a member in the region’s main security grouping.
Turkey’s interest in the SCO and its promotion as a dialogue partner should be welcomed by all, including NATO.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kazakh air force MiG-31 fighter jet crashed on a training mission in central Kazakhstan killing the pilot and injuring the navigator. The Kazakh military grounded all MiGs after the accident while an investigation takes place.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s prosecutor-general wants to change the face of policing in the country. By 2020, media quoted deputy Prosecutor-General Zhakyp Assanov as saying, women will make up roughly 30% of the Kazakh police force, up from today’s figure of about 3%.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)