Tag Archives: Islamic extremism

Uzbeks and Tajiks face Taliban threat

NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A senior Afghan army commander in the north of Afghanistan said that the Taliban was encouraging Uzbek and Tajik radical militants to infiltrate Central Asia. The Pajhwork reported that Lt. Gen. Sher Aziz Kamawal had said that the Taliban was using instability in Kunduz region, on the border with Uzbekistan, as a launchpad for militants to move into Central Asia. Governments in Central Asia have been increasingly concerned about Taliban encroachment north.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

US embassy in Dushanbe warns of attacks

NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US embassy in Dushanbe issued a warning that Islamic militants were planning to attack large gatherings and kidnap people near the border with Afghanistan.

It said US citizens should avoid crowds and refrain from camping near the border.

“Terrorist groups may attempt to target large public gatherings and/or border crossings with Afghanistan,” it said in a statement.

The warnings comes a month after a similar warning was released in Kyrgyzstan. Governments in Central Asia have been worried both by a rise in the intensity of recruitment drives by the IS extremist group and by the encroachment north of the Taliban.

The US embassy did not give any more details of the threats or what had triggered the warning.

Media later quoted an official from the Tajik government as saying that the warning was overblown and that there was no threat to Tajiks or foreigners.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)

Kazakh court sentences man to death

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty sentenced Ruslan Kulekbayev to death for killing 10 people during a shooting spree earlier this year. Like Russia, Kazakhstan has a moratorium on the death sentence and Kulekbayev will instead serve a life sentence. If the moratorium is lifted, though, he will be placed on Death Row. Kulekbayev had previously said that his shooting spree in July, which started with the murder of a prostitute in the southern city of Shymkent, was a personal form of revenge against a society which he felt had rejected him. The court, though, said that he was an Islamic extremist.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kazakhstan looks to ban Salafism

ALMATY, OCT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan appeared to signal that it would ban Salafism, a form of Islam, after its new minister for religious affairs, Nurlan Yermekbayev, described it as “unacceptable”.

Mr Yermekbayev’s comments, at his first press conference as minister for religious freedom, will strengthen analysts’ views that the ministry, created last month, was designed to clamp down on religious freedom.

“We consider that for Kazakhstan, Salafism is an unacceptable and destructive religious movement. In

general, Kazakhstan’s society has a negative attitude to this alien understanding of faith, leading to radicalism,” the official Astana Times newspaper quoted him as saying.

“Our future work will focus on preventing the spread of literature and the work of the websites promoting the ideology of Salafism.”

Salafism is an ultra-conservative form of Islam that has its roots in Egypt. It has been blamed for the spread of radical Islam.

Previously, Wahhabism, has been blamed for encouraging a series of terrorist attacks in Kazakhstan and banned by the government.

But Kazakh officials have now blamed a series of gun attacks in Aktobe, in the west of the country, in June on a group of Salafists.

Kazakhstan, like its neighbours, has been clamping down on pious Muslims, increasingly worried that they are destabilising the country and acting as a possible fifth column.

Human rights groups have described the clamp-downs as attacks on human rights and free speech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

High-profile trial takes place in Kazakhstan

OCT. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The trial of a group of 29 men who attacked various targets including a police outpost and killed eight people in June started in Aktobe, in the western Mangistau region, under intense security. The men are accused of having links to radical Islam. The authorities in Kazakhstan have grown increasingly wary of radical Islam.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

Uzbek officials sentence islamists

OCT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the Ferghana Valley,east Uzbekistan, sentenced five men to up to nine years in prison for setting up an extremist Islamic cell, media reported. Uzbekistan and other countries in Central Asia have been cracking down on radical Islam although human rights groups have said these crack downs are being used as a pretext for curbing basic rights. Reports said that the group was trying to spread extremist propaganda and that they planned to overthrow the government. No more details were given.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

US & UK embassies warn of attacks in Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK, OCT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US and British embassies in Kyrgyzstan issued a warning that a terror attack was likely, barely six weeks after a car bomb was rammed into the Chinese embassy.

The warning will frustrate the Kyrgyz authorities who recognise the damage it will do to the country’s reputation as both a place to do business and as a tourist destination. Local media quoted the Kyrgyz National Security Committee as saying that they had no information on potential terror attacks.

In a statement, though, the US embassy said a terror attack was likely. “The US embassy has received information indicating the possibility of terrorist attacks, which may potentially involve kidnapping and hostage taking, targeted against local authorities and foreign diplomats during the month of October,” it said.

The warning didn’t give any specifics on who posed the threat or where the information came from but Kyrgyzstan, and other countries in Central Asia, have been dealing with a recruitment drive by the extremist IS group and other affiliated Islamic radical groups which want to destabilise the region. The separatist Uyghur group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, was also blamed for the car bomb against the Chinese embassy on Aug. 30. Only the driver of the car bomb was killed.

Kyrgyzstan has been marketing itself to Western tourists as the Switzerland of Central Asia, with snow- capped mountains and Alpine lakes. It also wants to attract more foreign investors. In 2012 Kyrgyzstan became the first country in the region to scrap visas for citizens of most Western countries.

Warnings of potential terror attacks and hostage-taking, though, will dent these drives to attract tourists and business.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)

S Ossetia officials arrest Tajik IS recruiter

SEPT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Security Services of South Ossetia, the breakaway region of Georgia, arrested a Tajik man, Umarjon Ismonov, for allegedly attempting to recruit Central Asian migrant workers into the ranks of the IS extremist organisation, Russian media reported. In recent years, the Caucasian mountain range has become a fertile recruiting ground for extremist Islamic organisations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Kyrgyz court sentences islamists

SEPT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Committee said a court in Osh jailed four alleged members of the extremist IS group. The two Kyrgyz and two Uzbek citizens, whose names were kept secret, received sentences of between 10 and 18 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks in the country. In August, a suicide bomber drove a car through the Chinese embassy gates in Bishkek injuring several people.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Kyrgyz security forces foil bomb attacks

SEPT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Service said it had defused two bombs in a shop in central Bishkek, preventing a terror attack. It didn’t say which group was allegedly behind the bombs. Kyrgyzstan is on high alert after a car bomb was driven through the gates of the Chinese embassy in Bishkek last month in a suicide attack later blamed on militant Uyghurs. The extremist group IS has also publicly stepped up its recruitment drive in Kyrgyzstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)