Terrorism in Central Asia February 2013
Terrorism and Islamic Radicalization in Central Asia A Compendium of Recent Jamestown Analysis February 2013 The Jamestown Foundation 1111 Sixteenth Street, N.W. Suite 320 Washington, DC 20036 1 EURASIA DAILY MONITOR Militants Threaten to Return to Central Asia after NATO’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 10 Issue: 6 January 14, 2013 By: Jacob Zenn http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=40302 On December 4, 2012, the deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, Kabdulkarim Abdikazymov, said to the press that Jund al-Khilafa was a “real threat” to Kazakhstan’s national security (Tengrinews, December 4, 2012). Similarly, on November 26, 2012, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security of Kyrgyzstan, Tokon Mamytov, warned that “there might be danger of an incursion from Afghanistan into Kyrgyzstan in 2013 or 2014” (Kyrtag.kg, November 26, 2012). Abdikazymov and Mamytov’s statements reflect concerns in Central Asia about “foreign fighters” currently in Afghanistan returning to their home countries after the planned US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2013. The last time a world power withdrew from Afghanistan—the Soviet Union in 1988—many foreign fighters from Southeast Asia returned to their home countries and used the financial and logistical networks and skills acquired in the war-torn country to form terrorist groups, such as Kumpulan Mujahidin in Malaysia, Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. The question now is whether the several thousand Central Asians in Afghanistan present a “real threat” to their home countries, as Abdikazymov suggests, or whether the threat is only perceived.
[Show full text]