MARCH 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Since 2013, as many as 4,000 Central Asians have travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq. Some of these militants play a crucial role in the organisation.
In September 2016, news agencies in Iraq reported that the former head of Tajikistan’s paramilitary police, Gulmurod Halimov, had been appointed ISIS’s supreme military commander. A recent report from the International Centre for Counter-terrorism revealed that Tajiks topped the list of foreign fighters used in suicide attacks.
For some observers, this development indicates that Central Asia is becoming a hotbed of radical Islam.
Long-suppressed during the Soviet Union, interest in religion has revived in Central Asia in the 25 years since independence and this revival has created concerns that the region’s population will embrace militant Islam.
Governments in the region, and some outside observers, argue that a cocktail of poverty, lack of education and rising religious piety drive radicalisation.
But the available evidence indicates a different story.
Almost half of the fighters from Tajikistan, for example, are well- educated graduates with degrees from secular universities and numerous fighters are from relatively wealthy families.
Only a handful of recruits have received any formal religious education. Far from being young and naïve as the government claims, the average age of fighters from Tajikistan is 28 years old, with over half of the fighters between the ages of 24 and 29. Numerous fighters experienced some form of trauma or personal crisis before joining Islamic State.
In other words, non-religious factors seem to be more important than religious ones in driving radicalisation in Central Asia.
Misdiagnosing radicalisation leads to counterproductive policies. Simply explaining recruitment through naivety and ignorance underestimates the conscious decision made by many to join an extremist group. Harsh measures that restrict the religious freedoms fail to address the underlying issues as well.
Instead, more needs to be done to counter ISIS’s propaganda, addressing social injustices and creating jobs and other opportunities so there is less incentive in the recruitment of extremist groups.
By Edward Lemon, a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia University. His research examines extremism in Central Asia.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)
