The Changing Face of Central Asia Terror

September 1, 2004

By Artem Agoulnik and Christopher Kelley

The suicide attacks that took place in the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan on July 30th should be a jarring signal to the United States. Radical Islam in Central Asia is in the midst of sweeping transformations. Despite the loss of their Afghan base, terror groups in the region are adapting and are mounting increasingly potent operations. The most recent bombings - targeting the US and Israeli embassies - confirm not only that the wave of terror that swept Uzbekistan back in March was not an isolated incident. It also points to the fact that Central Asia's terrorists have increasingly set their sights on the United States.

This transformation has been in the making for some time. Over the past three years, Central Asia's terrorist groups have expanded their geographic reach and intensified their activities throughout much of the post-Soviet space.

One such organization is the extremist Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT). A radical offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, HT has expanded its activism far beyond its home base of Uzbekistan. The group is now rumored to be actively recruiting in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and stepped up activities within Russia, now boasting over 30 active cells in the vicinity of Moscow alone. What's more, recent reports suggest that HT, though ostensibly non-violent, has established a "combat wing," and has links both to Chechen militants and to al Qaeda.

HT is not alone. In Tajikistan, worried authorities have begun to move against another Islamic group, known as Bayat, which is rumored have ties to both the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Bay'at al-Imam, an Arab group connected to Iraqi terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The group is believed to be responsible for a string of arsons, beatings and particularly violent murders.

New alliances have sprouted up as well. According to July testimony of the head of Tajikistan's National Security Service, Tokon Mamytov, the IMU, Tajik and Kyrgyz fundamentalists and Uighurs from Western China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region have joined forces to create a new clandestine umbrella organization, the Islamic Movement of Central Asia. Its purported goal: the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate in Central Asia.

And in China's western Xinjiang province, the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan has stepped up its activities, expanding recruitment beyond China's Uighur population to include other ethnicities, such as Afghans, Chechens, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. The group has also moved its nucleus of activity westward, from Xinjiang to Central Asia.

More worrisome still is the potential of these groups to acquire catastrophic capabilities. In March, a spokesman for Tajikistan's Drug Control Agency confirmed the arrest of an Uzbek national – in possession of three grams of factory-grade plutonium, reportedly originating from either Russia or Kazakhstan – en route to either Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Kazakhstan, meanwhile, is investigating claims that highly-enriched uranium from the Central Asian state has made its way onto the global black market as part of the nuclear network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Islamabad's nuclear bomb.

These dynamics should matter a great deal to Washington. With upwards of 2,000 Coalition troops currently stationed in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, the United States is already heavily engaged in the region. And that engagement is growing; the Bush Administration has made it clear it is seeking a long-term foothold in Central Asia as a hedge against emerging terrorist threats from the region and has already begun to bolster its political and military presence in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

In the process, the United States has become a target for the region's radicals. According to Colonel Steven Kelly, the former commander of the U.S. airbase at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, three terrorist attacks on that installation alone have been prevented over the last year.

Yet so far, Washington has fallen short of developing a coherent regional security policy. Instead, it has vacillated between expanding military contacts with the Central Asian republics and slashing crucial assistance to these same states.  A more consistent approach toward the region, however, requires balancing concrete military and intelligence cooperation with legitimate questions about pluralism and political freedoms. Most of all, it necessitates understanding that Central Asia constitutes a critical front in the war on terrorism - and a bellwether for the Bush Administration's long-term success.

Artem Agoulnik is Program Associate at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. Christopher Kelley is a researcher in the Council's Eurasia Program.