Tag Archives: security

Islamic radicals in Central Asia

APRIL 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Snow covered the Almaty street, reflecting the light pouring from the restaurant’s windows.

Inside, vodka flowed, dancers twirled and laughter boomed.

This was a typical Chechen wedding party in Kazakhstan on a freezing evening in February.

The women wore their hair loose; the men strutted and joked as they tried to impress.

Across Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, a proud, flamboyant Chechen diaspora is acutely visible.

Worried that the unruly Chechens would rebel while the Red Army was fighting the Nazis, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin deported roughly 500,000 people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia in 1944. In 1957, four years after Stalin’s death, the Soviet authorities eased movement restrictions. Many Chechens opted to return home. Many others, though, stayed.

But despite the suspected Boston bombers’ Chechen ethnicity and upbringing in Kyrgyzstan, these communities do not hold particularly radical Islamic beliefs.

Radical Islam is a danger to Central Asia but the risk from Chechens already living within the region is low. The main danger lies in the flow of radical beliefs from places like Makhachkala — the teeming capital of Dagestan and apparently where the suspected Boston bombers lived after leaving Kyrgyzstan — to poor, vulnerable ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.

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(News report from Issue No. 132, published on April 22 2013)

Suicides among the Kazakh military

APRIL 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two Kazakh soldiers committed suicide on consecutive days, local media reported, highlighting a continued problem with bullying in the military. In Astana on April 4, one soldier hanged himself. The following day, in Karaganda, another soldier shot himself. Bullying is common in armies across the ex-Soviet Union.

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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)

Iran nuclear talks held in Kazakhstan

APRIL 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A second round of negotiations in Almaty between Iran and a US-led group ended without a resolution to the long-running dispute over the Iranian nuclear programme. Participants, though, praised Kazakhstan for the smooth running of the discussions.

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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)

ICG: Russia controls Georgia’s breakaway region

APRIL 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Disagreements between the local authorities in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia and their Russian sponsors do exist, but Russia effectively controls the province through its military presence and financial support, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a new report. The views of the ICG, which is based in Brussels, are influential.

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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)

Georgia stops radioactive trade

APRIL 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Tbilisi arrested three men for holding a radioactive isotope that could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb, media reported. Police did not give the nationalities of the men. The Georgian authorities have previously arrested people in Tbilisi for selling elements needed to make a radioactive bomb.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 130, published on April 5 2013)

Tajikistan fears instability

APRIL 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon reiterated his concern that NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan will destabilise Tajikistan and Central Asia, Reuters reported from a conference in Brussels. NATO plans to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Tajikistan shares a 1,200km porous border with Afghanistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)

Russia’s military exercise strains relations with Georgia

MARCH 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered a surprise large scale military exercise in the Black Sea, potentially straining relations with Georgia. Reuters reported that 36 warships and an unspecified number of warplanes would take part in the exercise, designed to show off Russia’s military might.

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(News report from Issue No. 129, published on March 29 2013)

Georgia offers to send forces to Mali

MARCH 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia offered to send two military officers to support a 500-man EU force heading to Mali to train government forces fighting Islamic radicals. Georgia’s offer is significant as it is an extension of its policy to support US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Georgia wants to join both NATO and the EU.

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(News report from Issue No. 128, published on March 22 2013)

Tajikistan wants Russia to fund hydropower

MARCH 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Tajikistan wants Russia to guarantee funding for hydropower equipment in return for extending the lease on its military base. Last year Russia and Tajikistan agreed a 40 year extension to the Russian military base, an issue that had strained relations.

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(News report from Issue No. 128, published on March 22 2013)

Uzbekistan to receive UK military vehicles

FEB. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – The UK will hand over military vehicles such as Land Rovers and trucks worth $700,000 to the Uzbek authorities in return for permission to extract its military equipment from Afghanistan across Uzbekistan in 2014, media reported. Rights groups have criticised deals with Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 124, published on Feb. 15 2013)