A new video shared on the Internet shows the photographs of 19 men identified as ethnic Tajiks who are claimed to have died fighting alongside the militant group Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

The five-minute video, titled Martyrs Inshallah Tajik Brothers of the Caliphate, in Tajik Persian, was first shared on YouTube on February 19, according toRFE/RL’s Tajik Service, Radio Ozodi. Since then, the video has been uploaded and re-shared on other YouTube accounts.

The video shows a series of still photographs of militants who were purportedly killed in battle in Syria or Iraq, with the name of each dead militant displayed prominently. A Tajik Persian nashid, or hymn, is used as a soundtrack to the video.

The 19 militants shown in the video are identified only by their noms de guerre, nicknames the militants chose in place of their real names when they joined IS. They are named as: Abdullokh, Zayd, Mukhammad, Kori Abu Abdurakhmon, Anas Abdullakh, Abduvoris, Abu Hafs, Abu Aisha, Imron, Islom, Abu Hureira Forsi, Akoi Bobokhon, Abu Yusuf, Abu Hureira, Ali, Abu Sufiyon, Abu Boro, Said, and Sa’ad. The «director» of the video is listed as Abu Talha.

None of the militants shown in the video has been identified by Radio Ozodi. It is also not possible to independently verify when the militants shown in the video were killed.

However, the video looks authentic and is typical of IS «martyr videos» produced by Russian-speaking and militants and those from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. Such videos are produced to glorify the jamaat’s «martyrs» and are «unofficial» in the sense that they are not made by the IS’s media wing but are rather curated by a member of the same jamaat (fighting group) of which the killed militants were members.

Such «martyr videos» usually feature militants who were killed over a period of several months rather than all in the same battle. It is likely, therefore, that the Tajik militants shown in this video were not all killed very recently, but over the past several months.

It is not known how many Tajik nationals are fighting in Syria and Iraq. Official figures, according to Radio Ozodi, put the number at 300. According to Edward Lemon, who tracks Tajik fighters in Syria, there is online evidence of just 67 fighters, though there are likely to be more unreported Tajiks in Syria and Iraq.

— Joanna Paraszczuk

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-isis-fighters-killed-syria-iraq/26880270.html

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, has accused the United States of supplying food and weapons to the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria, and of seeking to control, not destroy the extremists.

Abdollahian said that U.S. warplanes have dropped ammunition and weapons in areas that are under the control of IS militants, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported on March 2.

The Iranian deputy foreign minister made his comments at an international conference in Tehran on Iranian foreign policy.

«America has formed a coalition of 60 countries to fight Daesh [the Arabic and Persian shorthand for IS] in Iraq and Syria, but what we are seeing and what regional intelligence services are saying indicate that America has formed a coalition to fight against [IS], but the actions of this country is purely to manage [IS],» Abdollahian was quoted as saying.

According to Abdollahian, the United States has been dropping «packages of food aid and propaganda» into areas controlled by IS forces.

The Iranian deputy foreign minister was likely referring to an incident in October 2014 in which weapons and ammunition dropped by U.S.-led forces and intended for Kurdish militias ended up in the hands of IS militants. IS fighters claimed last month to have seized American-made weapons, including M-16s and heavy machine guns, from Iraq’s military north of Baghdad.

Abdollahian said that the United States had claimed «computational errors» were behind the incident of weapons caches falling into IS hands, but said that these are «usually within the 50-100 km range» whereas the U.S. is «aiming for the center of Iraq, a distance of 800-900 km» from the intended targets in northern Iraq.

Abdollahian’s theory that the United States is secretly supporting IS in Iraq and Syria by supplying it with food and weapons is a theory that has gained ground on a number of conspiracy-theorist websites, including Infowars, which repeated claims made by Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency, close to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The Iranian deputy foreign minister’s accusations also come amid reports that Iran’s influence on Iraq’s military affairs, particularly in the fight against IS militants, is increasing, with Iran taking a leading role in an Iraqi offensive to reclaim the city of Tikrit, 80 kilometers north of Baghdad.

Iran has supplied drones and ground troops to assist in the offensive, which began on March 2, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The Iranian fighters, who are from the IRGC, are mainly operating artillery and rocket batteries, according to a U.S. military official.

Iranian news agencies including Fars News reported on March 2 that the powerful commander of Iran’s Quds Force, the IRGC’s wing operating outside Iran — has arrived in Tikrit where he will «supervise and advise» Iraqi troops.

Suleimani, and by extension Iran and its Quds Force, has played a visible and key role in Iran’s involvement in the fight against IS in Iraq. Suleimani was reportedly involved in offensives against the miliants, including in battles to retake Iraqi towns in Diyala province from IS.

— Joanna Paraszczuk

http://www.rferl.org/content/iran-isis-us/26879880.html

Tajikistan holds parliamentary elections on 1 March and Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the toxic climate in which news organizations are forced to work in the country, noting that democratic elections cannot take place unless there is freedom of information. Читать далее ELECTIONS CANNOT BE DEMOCRATIC WITHOUT FREEDOM OF INFORMATION →

TAJIKISTAN

Elections cannot be democratic without freedom of information

ALMATY, Kazakhstan —  A court in Kazakhstan has rejected journalist Gulzhan Erghalieva’s challenge against closure of her magazine, upholding a ruling ordering Adam Bol (Be a Human) to shut down.

Erghalieva said after the Almaty City Court’s decision was pronounced on February 26 that she has not yet decided whether she will appeal.

She said she had started a new media project, called Adam (Human), which she plans to launch on March 13.

In December, an Almaty court ordered Adam Bol to be closed for «propagating war.»

That ruling came weeks after the magazine published an interview with opposition activist Aidos Sadyqov, who lives in exile in Ukraine.

In the interview, Sadyqov lambasted Russia for its involvement in the military conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Erghalieva, whose magazine published reports on alleged corruption and rights abuses by officials, has been under pressure from the authorities for years.

http://www.rferl.org/content/almaty-court-upholds-kazakh-journal-closure/26870802.html

Evidence has emerged that a group operating in the Americas has made use of the so-called «dark web» and the software-based online payment system Bitcoin to fundraise for the Islamic State (IS) group, a cyberintelligence analyst has found.

Ido Wulkan, who is based in Tel Aviv and works for Singapore-based cyber intelligence firm S2T, told RFE/RL that he has recently uncovered evidence that an anonymous group has been soliciting donations for Islamic State.

Wulkan came across a reference to the Bitcoin fundraising site when surfing the «dark web» — a collection of underground websites where users can interact anonymously — for a client. Using a technology developed by S2T, Wulkan surfed to a closed Turkish hacker site, where he says he uncovered a reference to a website calling itself an «Islamic State donation site.»

A message on the fundraising site said that those behind it were a community of Muslims, some of whom were in the United States. The site explained that the group was working with recent converts to Islam and training others to establish a new Islamic front in the U.S. and elsewhere in the Americas.

The site went on to solicit donations via Bitcoin, Wulkan told RFE/RL.

According to Wulkan, the fundraising website is the first concrete evidence that groups linked to the Islamic State group are using the dark web to raise funds.

There has, however, been other evidence that pro-Islamic State groups are using Bitcoin as a means to collect money via the mainstream Internet.

Fears that the group could do so were raised in July, after a PDF document suggesting that militants could use the software-based payment system to fund their operations was uploaded to a WordPress blog. The document, titled Bitcoin and the Charity of Violent Physical Struggle, argued that the use of Bitcoin would make it more difficult for law-enforcement authorities to track transactions made by militants and «secretly fund the Mujahedin [militants] with no legal danger upon them.»

In October, a pro-Islamic State website hosted by a Swedish server asked visitors to help support the upkeep of the site by making donations in Bitcoin.

«Many people feared that groups like [the Islamic State group] would use Bitcoin, because it’s anonymous and because it’s a good way to transfer money,» Wulkan said.

With increasing pressure on the Islamic State group on the mainstream, visible Internet — e.g. as pro-IS websites are closed and social networks like Twitter and Facebook move to ban IS-related accounts — it is possible that the militant group and its supporters could move to the dark web, Wulkan says.

«The [IS group] are losing space on the regular Internet,» he added.

As yet, militant activity on the dark web is very minor, according to Wulkan, who notes that the Bitcoin fundraising website is the first one that he has come across on the dark web dedicated solely to that purpose.

«I don’t believe that it was a fake site,» he adds, noting that the FBI has since closed down the Bitcoin account linked to the site — but not before it had managed to raise around $1,000 using Bitcoin.

That, as Wulkan points out, is a very tiny amount compared to the Islamic State group’s wealth.

However, it could indicate the start of a trend whereby groups like the Islamic State group would move to the dark web, Wulkan believes.

— Joanna Paraszczuk

http://www.rferl.org/content/islamic-state-dark-web-bitcoin/26867381.html

Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist and RFE/RL contributor who faces an array of charges she says are politically motivated, has been convicted of libel and fined 2,500 manats ($3,180).

Ismayilova’s lawyer, Elton Quliyev, told RFE/RL that a Baku court judge issued the ruling on February 23 at the pretrial detention center where Ismayilova has been held since December 5.

Ismayilova was found guilty of publicly calling former opposition activist Elman Hasanov an agent of the national security ministry.

She denies having made such an allegation.

Lawyer Quliyev vowed an appeal.

Ismayilova, who has reported extensively on the financial dealings of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and members of his family, was initially detained on what authorities described as suspicion of inciting an attempted suicide.

She has since been hit with new charges including embezzlement, illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, and abuse of power, and faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

Ismayilova denies any wrongdoing.

http://www.rferl.org/content/ismayilova-fined-in-a-libel-case-in-baku/26864433.html

Russian tanks descending on Warsaw and Berlin? Missiles lobbed at Washington and London? Such are the scenarios aired by a Russian national television program in response to suggestions that world leaders mark the defeat of Nazi Germany somewhere other than in Moscow.

In a recent segment broadcast by the St. Petersburg-based Channel 5 station, presenter Nika Strizhak and a reporter suggest sending Russian tanks, fighter jets, and nuclear missiles to Western capitals should world leaders snub Russia’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of Victory Day in May.

«It’s a very intriguing idea to move our Victory Day parade to London or Berlin. We could certainly display our tanks in Warsaw and hold a large, European tour,» Strizhak said in the February 8 broadcast of her weekly news and commentary show, Glavnoye.

The segment, an apparent stab at satire, came in response to comments by Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna last week supporting an idea to have world leaders mark the anniversary in Gdansk.

«It’s not natural that tributes marking the end of the war should be organized where the war began,» Schetyna said, according to the AP, which noted that he appeared to be referring to the secret 1939 pact between Germany and the Soviet Union to carve up Eastern Europe.

Strizhak proceeds to pass the baton to a reporter who explains the relative ease with which Russian tanks and fighter jets could reach numerous European capitals.

«Warsaw is too easy. It’s only 1,300 kilometers from Moscow to the Polish capital,» he intones as dramatic music pulsates in the background, adding that Russian tanks could make it to the Warsaw suburbs «in less than a day.»

He adds that Berlin is just 1,800 kilometers away and would be «a nice place for a friendly visit» for the May 9 Victory Day celebrations, Russia’s most revered national holiday.

«That [distance] is nothing for a modern army. Furthermore, many Russian officers know Germany pretty well. They won’t even need any maps,» he says in the report, which segues into animation showing tanks rumbling into a city as a German flag is lowered and replaced by the Russian tricolor.

«Prague, Helsinki, Vilnius, Tallinn, Riga: Those are all very close,» he adds.

The reporter then sets his sights on London and Washington, which, he notes, will require «significant advanced planning» and the involvement of the Russian Navy and Air Force.

«But there’s still time until May,» he says. «We have a big army. There’s enough for everyone and for Moscow as well.»

He ends the segment by noting «with regret» that Russia’s «Western partners» won’t be able to see the Russian military’s Iskander and Satan missiles on parade.

«Those can only be delivered from Russia by air,» he says as an animated missile, outfitted with a smiley-face decal, rises into the air.

Channel 5 is owned by the National Media Group, in which Bank Rossia owns a stake. The bank’s largest shareholder, Yury Kovalchuk, is a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin who has been hit with U.S. and EU sanctions over the Kremlin’s interference in Ukraine.

The EU says Bank Rossia, which has also been hit with sanctions by both Washington and Brussels, owns «important stakes in the National Media Group, which in turn controls television stations that actively support the Russian government’s policies of destabilization of Ukraine.»

— Carl Schreck

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-tv-details-invasion-of-europe/26842837.html

TBILISI — Twenty Georgian media freedom and human rights groups joined more than a dozen news outlets in condemning a government-proposed bill criminalizing «strife-inciting calls.»

In a joint statement issued on January 26, the news and rights organizations warned that the bill poses the «risk of unreasonably restricting freedom of expression and stifling criticism.»

The bill, drafted by the Interior Ministry, that «calls inciting strife, i.e. public calls for violent actions, made verbally, in written or through other forms of expression and aimed at causing enmity or discord between racial, religious, national, ethnic, social, linguistic or other groups, shall be punished with imprisonment from 2 to 5 years.»

It was submitted to Parliament last week and it has yet to be debated.

Opponents warned that the «ambiguity» of the wording oin the proposed law would leave it open to broad interpretation and selective enforcement.

http://www.rferl.org/content/georgia-media-law-freedom-of-speech-bill-protest/26815877.html

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says violence and threats against Afghanistan’s journalists by the government and security forces are on the rise.

In a fresh report issued on January 21, HRW said such attacks are putting at risk the gains in media freedom in Afghanistan since 2001.

The 48-page report documents harassment, intimidation, and attacks on journalists and the Afghan government’s failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible.

HRW said the failure to protect journalistic freedom has emboldened those determined to suppress criticism of the government, the security forces, and other powerful entities in Afghan society.

HRW said he Taliban insurgency has greatly contributed to the climate of fear by explicitly targeting journalists for reporting deemed unfavorable.

HRW called on Kabul to do more to end the violence and intimidation, and said the Taliban should end its attacks on civilian organizations, including the media.

http://www.rferl.org/content/afghanistan-media-freedom-human-rights-watch-/26805082.html