Contagious Jihad: Turmoil in Central Asia
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© Kamoludin Abdullaev 2012 Contagious Jihad: Turmoil in Central Asia CONTENT INTRODUCTION Central Asia: Land and People - Defining Central Asia - Ethnic composition - Brief historical background The 19th Century Great Game - State and border formation - The end of stateless “free ride”? - The Evolution of the Insurgency in Central Asia - The Basmachis: mujaheeds, bandits or national liberators? - Soviet-Afghan war and Central Asians - Civil war in Tajikistan: local conflict? - Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan joins Afghan jihad - Recent rise in violence in Central Asia Prospect of Talibanization of Central Asia - Major conflict triggers - What makes spillover effect possible? - Central Asian Partnership in Solving the Afghan-Pakistan Conflict - Central Asian state policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan - Cooperation between US and international community in Afghan-Pak with Central Asian states CONCLUSION 1 Introduction This book focuses on the impact of the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict and recent large-scale military operations against Taliban militants and international jihadis on the neighboring independent Central Asian states. The study will provide policymakers with comprehensive historical background, analyses, and policy options for developing regional security strategies that closely engage countries of Central Asia in resolving the Afghanistan-Pakistan issue. Afghanistan’s protracted conflict has long attracted militants from all over the world eager to fight a “holy war” against the “unbelievers”. During the Soviet-Afghan war they were known as mujahedeen. Since the launch of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan, these militants have become to be known as jihadis. The jihadi movement is a combination of various militant groups that came to existence with the Western, Saudi, and Pakistani support during the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Driven by diverse and, at times, conflicting motives, these major powers bolstered the radical Islamist groups involved in the bloody proxy war in Afghanistan, which marked the final phase of the Cold War. With the collapse of the USSR, the United States lost all interest in Afghanistan, but jihadism left behind in Afghanistan lived on and thrived. In late 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States waged a war against the world jihadis based in Afghanistan, declaring them terrorists and putting pressure on Islamabad to capture these militants and destroy their operational bases. Jihadism, as manifested in the 9/11 attacks and other al-Qaeda activities, is mostly a modern phenomenon removed from traditional Muslim protest movements. It includes suicide bombing, killing hostages, targeting civilians, etc. In Central Asia and Afghanistan, these kinds of terrorist activities began appearing in the early 2000s, despite the region’s long history of conservative and fundamentalist movements and popular insurgency. The core of these jihadi groups is comprised of individuals who are very different from the majority of Central Asian Muslims: they are Western-educated, speak good English and Arabic, adhere to extreme religious ideologies coupled with strong anti-American sentiment, and have loose kinship and cultural ties to their ancestral lands. Among jihadis in Afghanistan and Pakistan are the individuals from the neighboring Central Asia, mostly Uzbeks and Tajiks, as well as Muslims from other parts of the former USSR and Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous region of China. Here, they often group into ethno-religious and territorial societies - jamaats. Along with the Yemeni, Iraqi, Caucasian (Chechen and Dagestani) jamaats in Afghanistan, a jamaat associated with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) is eminent. It is comprised mostly of the members of the banned Islamist organizations originating from the Republic of Uzbekistan and their families, who escaped to Afghanistan between 1993- 2001 and later. The group is led by an amir – a political, religious and military leader.1 The IMU 1 Jamaats, led by emirs and often referred to as Wahhabis, have been typical for Northern Caucasus from the mid 1990s to present. They are militarized groups of terrorists, who often clash with local jamaats – communities of believers that adhere to traditional Islam. The veterans 2 leaders claim their jamaat is not exclusively Uzbek and it includes Sunni Tajiks, Tatars, Chechens, Kyrgyzes, Turkmens, Uyghurs, and even Burmese. Prominent Uzbek leaders and their subordinates are associated with major Pakistani and Afghan jihadi parties, including the Taliban and have received training in terrorist camps. They have also received substantial support from the Arab mujahedeen with links to al-Qaeda. In November 2001, the Taliban and their allies suffered a major defeat from the International Coalition and Afghan forces of the Northern Alliance.2 The IMU and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), a splinter group of IMU uniting Pan-Turkic jihadis in Europe (Germany) and with strong links to al-Qaeda, retreated to the district of Waziristan of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan. In 2008-2009, the IMU represented the biggest group of foreign fighters in Pakistan. According to Pakistani authorities, of the total 8,000 international jihadis present in Pakistan at least 5,000 were IMU associates.3 Governments of the United States, Central Asia, Russia and China classify IMU and other Taliban allies as terrorists, while Central Asian radicals themselves claim to be muhajeers - devout Muslims who have escaped religious persecution in their home countries and are welcomed by local Muslims. With the launch of the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), all non-Afghan jamaats (including IMU) swore an oath to join jihad under the command of Mulla Omar, whom muhajeers consider to be the leader of the Taliban and Muslims around the world. All available indications show that Afghan and Pakistani Muslims tolerated the newcomers of the post-Soviet origin. Since 2002, the IMU, as the Taliban affiliate, has been fighting against the coalition forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, showing little interest in jihad at home – namely Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. In addition to Uzbek muhajeers, thousands of poor Tajik, Uzbek, Tatar, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz youth have headed to religious schools in Pakistan for study in the past two decades. Many of these schools were engaged in indoctrination of extreme forms of Salafism.4 Some schools of the Soviet-Afghan war imported the violent and radical Wahhabi jamaats from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Northern Caucasus. Many of them were of Northern Caucasian origin. Their aim is to secede from Russia, which they perceive as immoral and barbarian, and build an Islamic state based on Sharia. 2 Northern Alliance was the coalition of northern, non-Pashtun ethno-regional (mostly Tajik and Uzbek) leaders. In September 2001, their Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Masud died from wounds suffered in a suicide bombing, allegedly carried out by al-Qaeda members. 3 Muhammad Bilal, “5,000 Uzbek militants hiding in Waziristan,” Daily Times, September 13, 2009 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\09\13\story_13-9-2009_pg1_1 4 Salafism, as a contemporary movement, began in the early 20th century in Europe and Egypt. Like Wahhabis, Salafis revert to the earliest days of Islam, contending they are following “true” or “unadultered” version of Islam. In fact, Salafism is a reformist and modernist movement, which has garnered growing support among young Muslims. Salafis propose a common Islamic identity to the fragmented and weak religious and ethno-political identities. Particularly, Salafism advocates for the suspension of the four schools of law (mazhabs) in Islam. Most Muslims do not accept Salafism, as it propagates takfir (right to declare as “unbelievers” those who, according to Salafis and Wahhabis, violate the norms of “true” Islam). 3 remained open to pro-jihadi Pakistani parties, which provided their recruits with special training facilities in the Pakistani tribal areas and Afghanistan. The Central Asian governments have perceived these radicalized students (talibs) as potential cadres for terrorism. Finally, radical Tajik Islamists, the irreconcilable segment of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) involved in the Tajik civil war (1992-1997) have found their own niche in the International Islamic Brigade in South Asia. Having refused to make peace with the secular Tajik government and integrate into the Tajik society, these seasoned fighters opted to join jihad in Afghanistan. Most of them came from the Rasht Valley (Gharm) in Tajikistan.5 They have received special training in terrorist camps and usually act as mercenaries for their international jihadi affiliates. These three groups - IMU with its break-away Islamic Jihad Union, radical pro-Salafi students, and the former UTO combatants represent the bulk of the Central Asian jihad against the United States and its allies. Unlike Chechens, Arabs, Malaysians, Tatars and other non-Afghan jihadis, Central Asians share many similarities with Afghans in terms of culture, race, language and dress. While in exile some of them married local women and integrated into the South Asian society. This is the largest non-Afghan group involved in the conflict in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Nevertheless, the jihadis of the Central Asian origin do not constitute a coherent or unified movement. They have diverse backgrounds and motivations that put them at the heart