Terrorist Groups - Central Asia

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)

Two major Islamic groups with extreme political programs have surfaced in Central Asia in the past ten years. The first, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was founded in 1998 by the charismatic Uzbek guerrilla fighter Juma Namangani (original name Jumaboy Hojiyev) and another Uzbek, Tohir Yuldeshev, who became the political leader of the organization. The proximate goal of the group was to overthrow the repressive regime of President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, who had imprisoned many members of Islamic groups that were predecessors to the IMU. According to regional expert Ahmed Rashid, Namangani’s group has a close relationship with al-Qaeda: “In the IMU, [al-Qaeda leader Osama] bin Laden cultivated a cultlike group that could act as a bridge to Afghanistan’s landlocked, mountainous neighbors—neighbors who were striking deals with American oil and gas companies and looking increasingly to Washington for assistance.” In 2000 and 2001, Namangani received an estimated US$35 million from al-Qaeda36 (including US$20 million given personally by bin Laden) to buy arms and equipment for his organization. According to Rashid, bin Laden also considered Central Asia as a prime source of new recruits to his cause, and the IMU as a prime instrument in the recruitment process.
An avowedly terrorist organization, the IMU has been especially active in areas adjacent to the Fergana Valley, which is the economic and natural resource center of Central Asia. The IMU aims to capture that critical region and establish an Islamic caliphate that would eventually expand to rule all of Central Asia. In 1999 and 2000, Fergana, which includes territory of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, was the scene of terrorist actions that included the Mariya Chernitsyna, “Can We Not Live without Drugs?” Moskovskiy Komsomolets [Moscow], 3 April 2002(FBIS Document CEP20020403000181). Tom Walker, “Passions Running at Their Height,” review of Ahmed Rashid’s Jihad in Sunday Times [London], 3February 2002. 36 Ahmed Rashid, “Why Militant Islamicists in Central Asia Aren’t Going to Go Away,” The New Yorker, 14 January 2002. Jonathon Curiel, “From the Cauldron’s Edge: Taliban Author Offers Rare Insight into Troubled Territories,” review of Ahmed Rashid’s Jihad in San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Review, 3 March 2002.
kidnapping of Japanese, Kyrgyz, and American citizens in Kyrgyzstan. In the same period, IMU fighters were training and recruiting with Taliban forces in Afghanistan, where IMU leaders had established close connections. Before September 11, the IMU was an active participant in the Taliban’s struggle to gain full control of Afghanistan against resistance forces in the northeast of that country. Under Namangani’s command, an IMU force reportedly 3,000 to 5,000 strong fought beside the Taliban regime against U.S. and Afghan forces in the campaign of late 2001 Some IMU forces reportedly remained with holdout Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan as late as May 2002.39 Namangani’s reported death in the Afghan fighting had not been confirmed as of September 2002. According to a July report from the National Security Council of Kyrgyzstan, he had recovered from wounds sustained the previous winter and was gathering forces in the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan.
In 1999 stringent security procedures by the Uzbek armed forces, together with pressure from the Tajikistan government to vacate bases in that country, caused the IMU to begin a quiet infiltration into Kyrgyzstan.41 Kyrgyzstan also is a primary IMU target because it is the only Central Asian country to allow the activity of Christian missionaries, a policy that stirs resentment among Islamic fundamentalists. In 2001 the IMU mounted guerrilla attacks in southwestern Kyrgyzstan from sleeper cells already in that country, rather than by moving fighters across the border from Tajikistan as it had in the campaigns of 1999 and 2000. This new stratagem is significant because it reduced pressure on the IMU from the Tajikistan government and confirmed a permanent IMU presence in Kyrgyzstan.
Establishment of a beachhead in Kyrgyzstan has been facilitated by inept and uncoordinated border controls in the region where Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet. According to Rashid, the mutual distrust among these three states and Uzbekistan’s unilateral mining of its portion of the border have increased the incidence of the smuggling activity that Armen Khanbabyan, “To the Evident Indifference of Moscow,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta [Moscow], 6 February2002, 5.39 Todd Zeranski, “Al-Qaeda Ally in Central Asia Poses Lingering Threat, Bloomberg News, 12 March 2002; reportin Izvestinya-Kazakhstan [Almaty], 15 May 2002 (FBIS Document CEP2002052000087). 40 RFE/RL Newsline, 6, no. 138, pt. 1 (25 July 2002). 41 Svante E. Cornell and Regine A. Spector, “Central Asia: More than Islamic Extremists,” The WashingtonQuarterly, 25, no. 1 (2002).42 Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 130. Rashid, Jihad, 181-82.
supports the IMU. It also has disrupted the legitimate trans-border trade that is the foundation of the region’s economy, thus exacerbating the poverty that fosters extremist recruitment. Throughout the summer of 2002, Kazakh and Kyrgyz newspapers reported a concentration of 1,500 to 5,000 IMU fighters in the valleys of the Alay Mountain chain just south of the Fergana Valley, presumably the result of successful regional recruiting in preparation for another summer offensive into the Kyrgyz and Uzbek parts of the valley.45 As of early September 2002, no such offensive had been reported.