JULY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the southern Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan sentenced four people to between six and 12 years in prison for trying to recruit young men to fight for Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq. Central Asian states are increasingly nervous about extremist recruitment drives.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan agreed to jointly investigate a shoot-out along its shared borders earlier this month that killed one person, media reported. The announcement was an important step in deescalating tension along the border. There have been several clashes on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In rural Azerbaijan religious violence has increased because of extremism in Syria and Iraq, eurasianet.org reported. It said that in a village a group of Shi’a Muslims shaved the beard of a Sunni man. The next day Sunni Muslims attacked Shi’a group.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Afghan security forces killed 14 Taliban fighters in a gun battle along the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border, media reported. Although the battle didn’t involve Turkmen forces, it acts as a reminder the Taliban operates on the edge of its border. Turkmenistan has blamed several attacks on its border posts on the Taliban.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A new report released by the Kyrgyz government’s main think tank, the National Institute of Strategic Studies (NISS), said that joining the Customs Union (CU) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU) may trigger short term economic and social discomfort.
The report is the first serious analysis of the costs and benefits of membership carried out by the government itself. It will make for troubling reading for President Almazbek Atambayev who is still trying to sell the idea of membership of the CU/EaEU to the general public.
Membership of the CU will probably trigger inflation which may lead to political unrest and possibly even a rise in Islamic radicalism, the report said. The Macroeconomic situation may subsequently improve, the report added, without making predictions as to how long that might take.
The report also stressed several benefits of the CU, including duty-free oil imports from Russia — a benefit Kyrgyzstan already enjoys — and security via the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which Kyrgyzstan is already a member.
On Kyrgyzstan’s frail democracy, the report was also incisive. Parliamentarianism would be better developed outside the EaEU than inside it, while norms of governance and nationalist sentiment in Russia could hamper Kyrgyzstan’s political development, the report said.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – More reports have surfaced from Uzbekistan of mass arrests in the Uzbek security services.
Last month, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported that police detained roughly 100 people in Ukraine’s customs service on various accounts of corruption now, it appears, 40 members of the security services have been arrested.
Sources told RFE/RL that Colonel Javdat Sharifhojaev, a powerful member of the security services, was among those arrested.
It’s unclear if the latest arrests are linked to the very public row between the daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov and the security services or, instead, if these various detentions are the result of a genuine anti-corruption drive that it appears to have launched.
It could also be a turf war between the various, and powerful, departments of the security services.
Uzmetronom.com, a website linked to the Uzbek authorities, said that the Uzbek authorities had decided to increase penalties against officials for taking bribes.
The Uzbek authorities, apparently, declined to confirm the detention of the various officials.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan appears to be ramping up the pressure on Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh by holding a series of high profile military exercises along the border.
Armenian backed rebels have held Nagorno-Karabakh since a 1994 UN negotiated cease-fire but barely a week goes by without reports of isolated shootouts and casualties. Over the past decade, as Azerbaijan have become increasingly rich from oil and gas, it has also built up its weapons systems and military.
And increasingly bellicose language about war with Armenia has built up.
“Servicemen shouldn’t forget that 20 percent of the Azerbaijan’s territories are under occupation and the main task is to free these lands from invasion,” Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov said at a ceremony to honour the militar earlier this month.
This 20% is Nagorno-Karbakh and adjacent regions.
Europe’s peace monitoring watchdog, the Organisation for Cooperation and Secutriy in Europe (OSCE) has consistently called the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh the most dangerous of the South Caucasus’ frozen conflicts.
Azerbaijani media reported that 10,000 soldiers, 300 armoured vehicles, 100 artillery pieces, 20 aircraft and 15 air defence pieces were taking part in the 3-day exercise.
This exercise is certainly large but it needs to understood in context. Earlier this year, Azerbaijan mobilised 20,000 soldiers for an exercise on the border.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Islamic extremists who have captured several cities in Iraq under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have been directly trying to recruit disenchanted religious Kazakhs.
In an interview with Tengrinews, a news website linked to the Kazakh government, political analyst Yerlan Karin said that he had seen videos put out by ISIS showing men with Kazakh passports being recruited and then trained.
He also said that in Syria, where Islamic extremists from Central Asia, had been fighting, units were organised along ethnicity. And this, experts have said, is particularly worrying as they may be more inclined to use the skills and experience learned in Syria back home.
“There have been such cases in Central Asia already: 25 Kyrgyz nationals who returned from combat zones in Syria and attempted acts of terrorism in their home country are now in prison in Kyrgyzstan,” Mr Karin said.
The authorities in Central Asia have been particularly nervous about the civil war in Syria and now the ISI attacks in Iraq, as they represent an easily accessible war zone for Islamic extremists to gravitate towards.
ISI have declared an Islamic Caliphate stretching across Syria and Iraq.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Almaty sentenced five men to between 6 and 7-1/2 years in jail for being members of the banned Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. The authorities in Kazakhstan have said that they are fighting a growing wave of Islamic extremism. The court found the men guilty of spreading terrorist propaganda and inciting hatred.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia accused Azerbaijan of intensifying shelling of pro- Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Tension has been rising around Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia’s defence minister, Seyran Ohanyan, also rejected calls for the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to monitor the cease-fire around Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
