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Extremism fuelled by the Afghan Taliban movement continues to spread across the post-Soviet countries and beyond. Chechnya, Dagestan and the North Caucasus in Russia, the Fergana Valley region in Uzbekistan, bordering Kirgizia and the mountainous regions of Tajikistan, are all facing Islamic insurgencies that threaten the region. The Uigar secessionist movement in the Xingjiang-Uigar autonomous area of China and the terrorist movement in Kashmir have links with this region. How big is this threat and are the moves to counter this threat adequate?
The Afghan mujahideens have played a pro-active role in almost all conflicts that have involved Islamic forces in the post-Soviet countries. In the Nineties, the government of Azerbaijan asked the Afghan mujahideens for help against Armenian forces in the Nagarno-Karabakh region.
It is at this point that the Arab militant Khattab entered Baku. Chechen rebels including their leader Shamil Basayev participated in this fight with the Afghans, and General Jokhar Dudayev the leader of the Chechen rebellion who became President, established contacts with them.
Planeloads of militants were brought in from Afghanistan between 1990 and 1994 and return flights took Chechens to training camps near Kunduz and Taloqan that also served as bases for the Tajik as well as the Uzbek Opposition and rebels, who had been pushed out by the Russian Army from Tajikistan.
The Tajik rebels established contacts with the Chechens and the militant Khattab, who joined the Tajik Opposition for some time, before going to the Balkans.
In Tajikistan, a civil war between the Islamic Opposition and the ex-Communists led to over 100,000 Tajik refugees taking shelter in North Afghanistan. These refugees were repatriated, but the Islamic Opposition established connections with the Taliban movement.
Despite support from Moscow, the Tajik President has little control of regions beyond the capital. Extremist leader Juma Namangani’s detachments have been launching attacks on him from the mountainous regions.
As President Islam Karimov outlawed Islamic groups in Uzbekistan, its members fled to Tajikistan and then to Afghanistan. Taliban territory is now used as a training ground for Chechen and Uzbek extremists, who plan to penetrate areas of Kirgizia and Uzbekistan and create an Islamic state in Fergana Valley.
Small groups of fighters engage Kirgiz border guards and Uzbek forces. Linked with the extremists are Islamic rebels in Kirgizia’s Osh region.
Armed units of the Islamic Taliban movement have been pushing back the Northern Alliance, whose leadership includes deposed Afghan leaders like Rabbani, Masood and Dostum. The Talibans have in the last few months, claimed towns like Taloqan and Hajaghar barely 20 kilometres from the Tajik border that is guarded by over 10,000 Russian troops.
The threat is further increased because the rebel fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are assisted by the Talibans who consider them brothers in arms.
These groups are persistently building a corridor from Tajikistan through Kirgizia’s Batken region, that will give them access to Tashkent where the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is increasing its control. This Afghan military expansion is taking place against the backdrop of the worst drought in 30 years in its southern and northern parts.
Reports from the Central Asian and Russian press indicate that a centre for training militants for these regions functions from Kandahar. Among its trainees are Chechens, Central Asians and the Uigurs. The radical wing of the Uigar movement is connected with the Islamic groups in Central Asia. And they feel the route to independence can come through Afghanistan and Fergana.
The Talibans are concentrating some of their armed detachments at the Uzbek and Tajik borders but the Afghans are clear that an armed invasion of Central Asian Republics (CARs) would be disastrous. Pakistan gets implicated with the Taliban movement because the Taliban roots go back to the madrassa students trained there.
These students emerged as armed detachments, escorting caravans travelling from Pakistan to Turkmenia. Moreover, Pakistan continues to retain the concept of jihad (holy war) as part of its security paradigm. The states facing threats from extremist movements have taken some steps to counter these.
President Islam Karimov who so far had stayed away from close alliances with Moscow has understood the problem and done a turnaround in favour of a collective security treaty, and has called neighbouring states to pool in their efforts and appeal for Moscow’s military assistance.
Russia alone can unite the Central Asian leaders and neutralise their relapses of unlimited sovereignty or personal conflicts. The former quarrels between the Kirgiz and Uzbeks have been put aside to coordinate actions against terrorist threats. Joint military groupings have been set up.
The Central Asia Economic Community (CAEC) signed an agreement to coordinate efforts in combating extremism. The Uigar problem has brought China into the picture and the Shanghai 5 (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia and Tajikistan) was created to deal with border problems.
But this agreement has already outgrown its mandate and the Shanghai 5 along with Uzbekistan (which does not share a border with China) have to work on the challenge of extremism. Russia and India set up a joint working group to specifically monitor problems of cross-border terrorism in October, after Putin’s India visit.
Does this mean that CARs, Russia and China will support the Northern Alliance of Masood against the Talibans? Moscow is certainly keen to do so, but any direct support to the Alliance is unlikely, especially since it goes against the United Nation’s resolution banning military supplies to armed groups in Afghanistan.
Moreover, as is evident, Talibans and extremism are only part of the problem. And if security for this region is restricted to military operations against the extremists, the crisis can only continue. Economic deprivation, political oppression and ethnic mobilisation also play significant roles in these rebellions. For example, Fergana Valley has a tangle of problems.
High levels of youth unemployment are pushing young, inexperienced people towards these movements. Some reports claim that 70 per cent of local residents support Islamic extremists.
In Uzbekistan, the President has evolved a highly authoritarian system and suppressed all political opposition. In these conditions, the Islamic parties are seen as the only opposition to the regime.
In Chechnya, an ultra-chauvinist militant nationalism based on Islam was constructed on the memories of the Chechen deportation to Kazakhstan during the time of Stalin, and the future of a greater Chechen nation. This helped the Dudayev regime overcome inter-clan hostility by mobilising people on this platform.
Instead of exposing Chechen ultra-nationalism, their violation of the Constitution and choking off Dudayev’s support base, Russia resorted to military tactics that caused massive civilian casualties through an indiscriminate use of military power.
The slaughter on both sides started the vicious circle of vengeful killing on both sides, making the disengagement of Russian troops difficult. The bitter war fought between the Chechen rebels and Moscow between 1994 and 1996, killed 80,000 people made thousands refugees.
The expenditure incurred by the war was estimated at $4.5 billion, much of which was misused from an IMF loan by Moscow. The first Chechen president, Dzokhar Dudayev, was killed during the war that refuses to end. Moscow has used the threat of Islamic fundamentalism to scuttle the issue of ethnic and minority rights.
Clearly then, movements caused by religious extremism and militant Islam are not the cause but the consequence of deeper and more tangled problems. The attempt to control extremism through military agreements cannot be the only solution.
The issues of alienation, political democracy, economic rights and social justice to people will have to be simultaneously addressed. Otherwise, extremism of infinite varieties will only continue and flourish.
(Anuradha Chenoy is a professor
with the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
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