JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Basking in the reflected glory of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first ever trip to Central Asia, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev seems to have seized his moment to boast of his country’s commitment — and his own personal efforts — in combating Islamic extremism.

During a 30-minute joint press conference with Ms Merkel, Mr Atambayev said he had ordered his office to pay for posters campaigning against Islamic extremism across Bishkek.

With the rise of the extremist group IS, Central Asian leaders have emphasised the role of external pressure on the radicalisation of their citizens and how their security forces respond to it.

These strategies have served the governments’ objectives of cracking down on opposition forces, shifting blame and establishing a constant ‘emergency mode’.

Some governments, like Turkmenistan, and to a lesser extent Uzbekistan, outright deny any radical Islamic presence within their borders. Even those countries that do, tend to blame foreign zealots for wiping up extremist sentiment.

Now, it seems, Mr Atambayev has changed the tone.

His decision to allocate public funds to posters that showed a correlation between the contamination of Kyrgyz traditional folklore and Islamic extremism is a bold one. The posters, plastered across motorways around the capital, showed a group of smiling girls in traditional white Kyrgyz dresses transitioning to a picture of a subjugated group of women wearing black hijabs that are alien to Central Asian cultures.

At the press conference, Mr Atambayev said that he supported the posters and wished there would be more across the city.

“[This] is where it all starts. We start with the adoption of foreign clothing, foreign words, and we end up with people who cut heads off,” Mr Atambayev said.

This is one of the first admissions from a Central Asian leader that radicalisation could be homegrown, albeit fuelled by adopting foreign custom.