By Bruce Pannier

By Farangis Najibullah

It wasn’t so long ago that Farrukh Sharifov had settled into a home in Syria with a group of fellow Islamic State (IS) group recruits, believing he was there to fight the good fight.

Now the 25-year-old is back in his native Tajikistan, helping the government prevent others from following his path to militancy.

Sharifov is among a small number of former IS fighters who’ve taken Dushanbe up on its offer to grant amnesties to Tajiks who voluntarily leave the radical militant group and who are deemed not to be a threat to society.

Those who pass the vetting process and are amnestied are spared criminal charges upon their return, but the state has put some, like Sharifov, to good use.

Eloquent and fluent in Tajik and Russian, Sharifov tells packed audiences about the horrors he witnessed during his monthlong stint in the IS stronghold of Raqqa earlier this year. He describes seeing people summarily executed without trial, women used as sex slaves, and militants putting severed heads on display as a warning to anyone who dares challenge their strict interpretation of Islam.

A Forgiving Approach

Countries around the world are considering what to do in the event that citizens of theirs who left to join IS decide to come back.

In the case of Tajikistan, some of the hundreds who went to fight in Iraq and and Syria have vowed to return home and wage war against the government in Dushanbe.

But despite the significant threat posed by IS-trained militants, Tajikistan has opted for a forgiving approach for those who had no previous affiliation with terrorist or extremist groups and who repent for joining IS.

«Young people who took part in military conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and other countries but have realized their mistake, regret their action, and voluntarily leave the conflict zone … will be allowed to return home,» the Ministry of Internal Affair announced on May 9, clarifying the conditions of the long-standing amnesty offer.

It’s up to those individuals to find their way to Turkey or other states, but once there the government will provide them assistance in getting their documents together and setting them up with transportation home.

It also offers assistance — for those who leave IS-controlled territories and reach Turkey – in obtaining passports and tickets to come home.

In order to convince prospective returnees that the offer is genuine, the ministry has set up a hotline, called the Trust Line, that fighters considering a return can call.

Six Tajiks Have Returned

Contacted by RFE/RL, an operator said the Trust Line has received «several phone calls» — including from fighters in Syria and their relatives in Tajikistan — since it was set up on May 9.

«When a Tajik fighter calls from abroad and asks for help to come home, our officers and psychologists talk to them to identify the fighter and their intentions,» the operator said.

At least six Tajiks, including a young woman, have returned from Syria in recent months.

After being questioned by authorities, five of the returnees were granted full amnesties and set free. One is to go on trial in Dushanbe after being charged with taking part in a foreign military conflict.

Officials in Dushanbe’s Somoni district court said «the details of the case will be made public in coming days.»

The Tajik government, which fought a five-year civil war with its Islamic opposition in the 1990s, is no stranger to the threats posed by home-grown militancy.

The eastern Rasht Valley, a former stronghold of the Islamic opposition, has seen a string of deadly militant attacks, including an ambush in 2010 that left 25 government troops dead.

The same month, Tajikistan suffered its first suicide bombing when a police headquarters in the northern city of Khujand was targeted.

That attack was blamed on an alleged member of the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an extremist group the government says has many supporters in Tajikistan, and parts of which have expressed allegiance to IS in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Despite potential security risks by the new breed of IS-trained militants, many Tajiks support the amnesty, with some hailing it as a second chance for «young people who have recognized their mistakes.»

«Some of the fighters have, indeed, gone to Syria and Iraq for the so-called jihad, but there are many others who went there just to make money,» says Abdulghani Mamadazimov, the head of Tajikistan’s Association of Political Scientists.

«Many were migrant laborers who were recruited in Russia and Kazakhstan,» Mamadazimov said. «They were promised money.»

There is currently no rehabilitation program in place to aid the returnees’ reintegration, but the authorities are giving assurances that they will be free to resume their work or education.

‘There Is No Religion’

Rizvon Ahmadov, a former IS fighter who has recently returned from Raqqa, told Tajik state TV that there are many Tajiks in Syria willing to leave the IS group.

Ahmadov, 22, said he went to Syria to fight for a religious cause and spent nine months there undergoing militant training.

«But there is no religion,» Ahmadov said. «When they occupy a place, they kill local men and marry or sell their wives. They rape women and sell children. They oppress people living there.»

Disillusioned and deeply traumatized by IS atrocities, Ahmadov and fellow Tajik Mavjuda Saburova managed to escape to Turkey and sought help from the Tajik Embassy.

Officials say first-hand accounts of IS horrors will help prevent young Tajiks from being swayed by extremist propaganda.

Former militant Sharifov frequently accompanies government officials and religious leaders as they meet with people across the country as part of Dushanbe’s antiextremism campaign.

Since his first public appearance at a gathering moderated by Interior Minister Ramazan Rahimzoda on May 7, Rahimov’s schedule has been packed with meetings and speeches.

Rahimov even recently gave a speech at the Dushanbe Grand Mosque during a sermon after Friday Prayers, an honor normally reserved only for chief imams.

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-islamic-state-militants-amnesty/27054985.html

The Tajik government’s current dilemma is the most recent proof of the ancient adage that you reap what you sow, but the message doesn’t appear to be getting through.

The Tajik government has a substantial problem, and it has been getting plenty of international attention. Dushanbe could use some friends to address it, but instead it seems intent on harassing a group that could serve as one of its best allies at the moment: the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (HNIT).

The problem is the defection of elite security-force commander Gulmurod Halimov to the Islamic State (IS) militant group. Or more specifically, the problem is the 12-minute IS recruitment video in which the former Tajik OMON commander alternately chastises and threatens his former employer and others. The video is designed to project the grievances of a state servant but also a pious Muslim against the clumsy attempts of a corrupt government to control the practice of Islam, and unfortunately such claims cannot be wholly dismissed.

The Tajik government has undeniably been trying to control the course of Islam in the country by, among other things, regulating the age at which males may start attending mosque, forbidding women from attending mosque, ordering clerics to wear state-approved uniforms in which to preach, and providing a list of approved topics for sermons and in some cases simply supplying texts to be read at prayers. Halimov mentioned a few of these regulations.

There are more examples. But to sum it up quickly, it is ultimately the state that approves clerics, and they serve in state-approved mosques and teach at state-approved madrasahs and often include Tajikistan’s president in their Friday Prayers.

One of the interesting aspects (to me, at least) of Halimov’s enlistment in the IS and subsequent criticism of the Tajik government is that he is from the only Central Asian country where there is a legally registered Islamic political party: the HNIT (sometimes known as the IRPT).

Tajik authorities could use some strong statements from the HNIT both condemning Halimov’s comments and endorsing the Tajik government, but that is extremely unlikely to happen.

Official Islam, Or Else

It must be mentioned that the HNIT leadership has spoken out against IS many times.

But that has not stopped the Tajik government from working to marginalize the HNIT — some now say with the aim of eventually removing the party from the scene in Tajikistan.

The HNIT and the government led by President Emomali Rahmon were opponents during the 1992-97 Tajik civil war but agreed to a one-of-a-kind peace deal that ended hostilities and gave the HNIT 30 percent of the positions in the government, from local to ministerial.

The HNIT’s share in the government was eroded over the course of the years until last March the party was finally locked out of the government entirely following dubious parliamentary elections that saw Rahmon’s People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan win an outright majority, with the rest of the seats going to parties supporting the president.

Many people, and I’ll name David Trilling (@dtrilling) and Edward Lemon (@EdwardLemon3) among them, noted how short-sighted this move by the government was to prevent the HNIT, the largest opposition party in Tajikistan, from winning even the token two or three seats it had held in parliament for a decade.

There have been many times in the past when the HNIT and Rahmon’s government were able to cooperate to achieve common goals. The HNIT has supported government efforts as recently as 2011 to track down, and often eliminate, rogue HNIT commanders from the civil-war days. During the shaky first few years after the civil war, the HNIT even offered military help to government forces crushing the last of the pro-government paramilitary forces, once useful but inconvenient after peace was reached.

In view of the new propaganda video from former OMON commander Halimov, this might be a good time to renew the cooperation of years past.

Instead, HNIT deputy leaders Saidamar Husayni and Mahmadali Hayit met with Supreme Court Chairman Shermuhammad Shohiyon on May 30 to complain about the Interior Ministry’s harassment of HNIT members and their families, as well as «cases of forcing party members to quit the party.» The two leaders handed over a 189-page complaint to the court.

Reaping What They Sow

It was only the latest in a series of incidents over many years involving the HNIT, usually the release of compromising material or videos but also including the deaths and beatings of party members in not-fully-explained circumstances.

Similar, though not quite as severe, techniques have been used to sideline influential moderate clerics who would not strictly follow the government line.

The HNIT probably cannot help convince Tajik nationals who have already gone to join IS to forsake the militant group and return home. Tajiks in IS would probably view the HNIT as heretics for cooperating with a secular government.

But the HNIT is influential among the faithful in Tajikistan. Those considering whether to leave and go to Syria or Iraq will not be dissuaded by the sermons of state clerics condemning the IS in one sentence then in the next breath praising officials whom the majority of the population considers corrupt.

They might however, listen to former government opponents with much cleaner Islamic credentials when they condemn the IS.

— Bruce Pannier, with Salimjon Aioubov and Mirzo Salimov of RFE/RL’s Tajik Service

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-has-government-lost-chance-to-speak-to-muslims/27049865.html

The Tajik government’s current dilemma is the most recent proof of the ancient adage that you reap what you sow, but the message doesn’t appear to be getting through.

The Tajik government has a substantial problem, and it has been getting plenty of international attention. Dushanbe could use some friends to address it, but instead it seems intent on harassing a group that could serve as one of its best allies at the moment: the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (HNIT).

The problem is the defection of elite security-force commander Gulmurod Halimov to the Islamic State (IS) militant group. Or more specifically, the problem is the 12-minute IS recruitment video in which the former Tajik OMON commander alternately chastises and threatens his former employer and others. The video is designed to project the grievances of a state servant but also a pious Muslim against the clumsy attempts of a corrupt government to control the practice of Islam, and unfortunately such claims cannot be wholly dismissed.

The Tajik government has undeniably been trying to control the course of Islam in the country by, among other things, regulating the age at which males may start attending mosque, forbidding women from attending mosque, ordering clerics to wear state-approved uniforms in which to preach, and providing a list of approved topics for sermons and in some cases simply supplying texts to be read at prayers. Halimov mentioned a few of these regulations.

There are more examples. But to sum it up quickly, it is ultimately the state that approves clerics, and they serve in state-approved mosques and teach at state-approved madrasahs and often include Tajikistan’s president in their Friday Prayers.

One of the interesting aspects (to me, at least) of Halimov’s enlistment in the IS and subsequent criticism of the Tajik government is that he is from the only Central Asian country where there is a legally registered Islamic political party: the HNIT (sometimes known as the IRPT).

Tajik authorities could use some strong statements from the HNIT both condemning Halimov’s comments and endorsing the Tajik government, but that is extremely unlikely to happen.

Official Islam, Or Else

It must be mentioned that the HNIT leadership has spoken out against IS many times.

But that has not stopped the Tajik government from working to marginalize the HNIT — some now say with the aim of eventually removing the party from the scene in Tajikistan.

The HNIT and the government led by President Emomali Rahmon were opponents during the 1992-97 Tajik civil war but agreed to a one-of-a-kind peace deal that ended hostilities and gave the HNIT 30 percent of the positions in the government, from local to ministerial.

The HNIT’s share in the government was eroded over the course of the years until last March the party was finally locked out of the government entirely following dubious parliamentary elections that saw Rahmon’s People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan win an outright majority, with the rest of the seats going to parties supporting the president.

Many people, and I’ll name David Trilling (@dtrilling) and Edward Lemon (@EdwardLemon3) among them, noted how short-sighted this move by the government was to prevent the HNIT, the largest opposition party in Tajikistan, from winning even the token two or three seats it had held in parliament for a decade.

There have been many times in the past when the HNIT and Rahmon’s government were able to cooperate to achieve common goals. The HNIT has supported government efforts as recently as 2011 to track down, and often eliminate, rogue HNIT commanders from the civil-war days. During the shaky first few years after the civil war, the HNIT even offered military help to government forces crushing the last of the pro-government paramilitary forces, once useful but inconvenient after peace was reached.

In view of the new propaganda video from former OMON commander Halimov, this might be a good time to renew the cooperation of years past.

Instead, HNIT deputy leaders Saidamar Husayni and Mahmadali Hayit met with Supreme Court Chairman Shermuhammad Shohiyon on May 30 to complain about the Interior Ministry’s harassment of HNIT members and their families, as well as «cases of forcing party members to quit the party.» The two leaders handed over a 189-page complaint to the court.

Reaping What They Sow

It was only the latest in a series of incidents over many years involving the HNIT, usually the release of compromising material or videos but also including the deaths and beatings of party members in not-fully-explained circumstances.

Similar, though not quite as severe, techniques have been used to sideline influential moderate clerics who would not strictly follow the government line.

The HNIT probably cannot help convince Tajik nationals who have already gone to join IS to forsake the militant group and return home. Tajiks in IS would probably view the HNIT as heretics for cooperating with a secular government.

But the HNIT is influential among the faithful in Tajikistan. Those considering whether to leave and go to Syria or Iraq will not be dissuaded by the sermons of state clerics condemning the IS in one sentence then in the next breath praising officials whom the majority of the population considers corrupt.

They might however, listen to former government opponents with much cleaner Islamic credentials when they condemn the IS.

— Bruce Pannier, with Salimjon Aioubov and Mirzo Salimov of RFE/RL’s Tajik Service

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-has-government-lost-chance-to-speak-to-muslims/27049865.html

Freedom House says restrictive new laws and violence against journalists resulted in a global decline of press freedom during 2014, bringing the world’s press freedom to its lowest point in more than 10 years.

In a report released on April 29, the U.S.-based watchdog said press freedom declined significantly in 18 countries and territories during 2014 — with some of the worst declines in Azerbaijan, Serbia, and Iraq.

Freedom House said Belarus, Russian-annexed Crimea, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were among the world’s 10 worst-rated countries and territories for press freedom.

It said the worst in the Balkans was Macedonia, where press freedom has continued to decline during the past five years.

The report says Azerbaijan’s government was one of the worst offenders for using detentions and closures of media offices under security or emergency laws, with nine journalists in prison by December 1.

It noted the jailing later in December 2014 of investigative journalist and RFE/RL contributor Khadija Ismayilova, as well of the closure of RFE/RL’s offices in Azerbaijan and the interrogation of RFE/RL employees there.

Click on map or here for a full interactive map of press freedom 

Freedom House said Russia’s media sector is increasingly owned by the state, by «private-sector cronies of the political leadership,» or by business interests that suppress content critical of the government.

Russia also was criticized for «more active and aggressive use of propaganda — often false or openly threatening — to warp the media environment and crowd out authentic journalism.»

The report said Russia’s «state-controlled national television stations broadcast nonstop campaigns of demonization directed at the internal opposition, neighboring countries whose polices have displeased Moscow, and the broader democratic world.»

It said Russian media played a major role in preparing the Russian public for war with Ukraine.

It also noted that a Russian law which took effect in August placed new controls on blogs and social media, requiring all websites with more than 3,000 visitors a day to register with state regulators as a «media outlet.»

Freedom House said that Ukraine,» facing a military invasion» by Russia, suspended the retransmission of at least 15 Russian television channels by cable operators.

It also noted that Lithuania, Latvia, and Moldova imposed suspensions or fines on Russian television stations for «incitement to war, disseminating historical inaccuracy, and lack of pluralism of opinions in news content.»

In Ukraine, the report said that in addition to the deaths of four journalists and violence associated with the separatist conflict in the east, one journalist was killed and at least 27 injured at the height of confrontations between protesters and police in Kyiv in February last year before the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Iraq’s poor record was linked to the seizure of vast swaths of territory in the north and west of the country by Islamic State militants.

Freedom House said Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region and Russian-annexed Crimea were «prime examples» of how reporters were deliberately barred by «repressive governments.»

The government of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic was criticized for trying to curb reporting about floods that hit the country and for «increasingly hostile rhetoric and harassment» of independent journalists.

http://www.rferl.org/content/press-freedom-lowest-point-10-years/26984487.html

Giving newborns undesirable names in the hope that it will spare them from divine wrath has attracted the attention of Tajik authorities.

Among older generations, it is not uncommon in Tajikistan to see first names like Khoshok (Fodder), Sangak (Small Stone), Istad (Should Stay), or Pocho (Son-in-Law.)

The reasoning behind the unusual eponyms can be attributed to the superstition that giving a child an unflattering name will make them less desirable, and thus prevent God from taking them away.

Under proposed amendments to Tajikistan’s civil-registry law, such names are out. The Justice Ministry initiative singles out naming children after animals, products, and inanimate objects — and they are not the only ones.

In the latest round of a Tajik name game that in recent years has seen a push away from Russian and secular names, and the promotion of Persian-rooted and patriotic names, the Tajik authorities are also trying to purge divisive and overtly Islamic, foreign names.

The amendments counter the trend among Tajiks of adding Islamic and Arabic endings to their names, by stating that «adding suffixes — such as -mullah, -khalifa, -shaikh, -amir, and -sufi — which lead to divisions among people, should be banned.»

And authorities have apparently noticed that religious names such as Sumayah, Aisha, and Asiya, previously almost nonexistent in the country, have become the most popular names for baby girls.

Sumayah is the first martyr of Islam; Aisha is the name of one Prophet Muhammad’s wives; and Asiya is the name of a Muslim noblewoman mentioned in the Koran. All would be banned, as would Muhammad, Yusuf, and Abubakr for boys.

The authorities’ opposition to such names reflects their unease over the rising influence of Islam, which has led to bans on the hijab and the forced shaving of beards.

«If the amendments get approved, our offices would refuse to register babies with names that are Arabic or foreign to our culture,» said Jaloliddin Rahimov, deputy head of registry department at the Justice Ministry.

«Such parents will be offered a list of Tajik names at the registry office,» Rahimov said. «Their children will be registered and given birth certificates only after the parents give them appropriate names.»

The rising popularity of Islamic names followed a previous trend, begun in the 1980s, in which so-called pure Tajik or old Persian names became fashionable both for girls and boys.

That trend culminated with President Emomali Rahmon dropping the Russian suffix of -ov from his surname in 2007, leaving him with the more traditional «Rahmon.»

Thousands of others followed suit, de-Russifying their names and sometimes replacing the Russian endings with pure Tajik suffixes such as -zoda, -zod, or -i.

The latest proposal has not yet made it to parliament, but it has already ignited public debate.

Some swiftly condemned it as a violation of personal freedom.

«If the Justice Ministry tells people what names to choose for their children, or to drop suffixes from their names, it would amount to interference in people’s private lives and restriction of people’s liberties,» said prominent lawyer Faizinisso Vohidova.

«And why has the ministry decided that some suffixes create divisions among people?» she asked. «This proposal is ridiculous.»

Dushanbe resident Mullo-Abdul-Hamid, who gave only his first name, said that «the ministry’s proposal undermines people’s rights.»

Mullo-Abdul-Hamid, who was named after his grandfather, said he had no problem with its religious roots.

Islamic leaders have so far distanced themselves from the debate.

Jaloliddin Khomushi, a high-ranking official at the state-backed Islamic Center, said Islam encourages beautiful and appropriate names — regardless of their Persian or Arabic origins — and discourages names with ugly or unpleasant meanings.

It is not known when parliament will debate the draft amendments, but some Dushanbe residents claim registry offices have already begun to implement the proposed bans.

Abubakr Haidarshoev said a city registry office refused to issue birth certificate to his nephew because the officials deemed the baby’s name, Akbar, «foreign to Tajik culture.»

The newborn was eventually registered and given a birth certificate, but not before his parents changed his name to Mahmud.

Written by Farangis Najibullah based on reporting by RFE/RL Tajik Service correspondents Ganjina Ganj and Mirzonabi Kholiqzod

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-society-names/26966134.html

ATajik man who was formerly a promising student at Russia’s prestigious Moscow State University (MGU) may have gone to Syria to fight alongside the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, his father has told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service.

Nasim Nabotov, 28, is from Farkhor district in southwest Tajikistan. He disappeared on March 5 after buying an air ticket to Moscow.

His father, Abdulmajid Nabotov, told Radio Ozodi on March 27 that his son had previously been a student at MGU, enrolling in the economics faculty in 2008.

But by the time Nasim was in the second year of his degree course, he had become far more interested in religion than economics, his father said.

Abdulmajid Nabotov believes that, instead of devoting himself to his studies, his son had somehow become mixed up with various radical groups in Moscow.

As part of his newfound interest in Islam, Nasim started to attend mosque, his father remembered.

Eventually, Abdulmajid Nabotov decided to bring his son back to Tajikistan so that he could keep an eye on him, he told Radio Ozodi.

Nasim dropped out of his studies in the second year of his course and went home to his village in the Farkhor district. There, he helped his father with the family’s bakery business and even started a family, living along with his three children.

‘We Didn’t Recognize Him’

Although Nasim had been taken out of the immediate circle of his religious friends in Moscow, he retained an interest in Islam — and «jihad.»

«He would use the Internet a lot, and through that connection he came to the idea of jihad,» his father told Radio Ozodi.

When Abdulmajid Nabotov asked his son what he was doing on the Internet, Nasim said he was «learning Koran verses,» his father said.

«My son would talk about jihad all the time. I told him, «Son, you’re wrong here, you’re mistaken here. That is, I tried to stop him, but apparently it was all for nothing. I remember when I talked to him on the phone at the beginning of March, he went on again about jihad in Syria and I told him that it was very dangerous and that he didn’t know what he was talking about,» Abdulmajid Nabotov said.

A former classmate of Nasim’s told Radio Ozodi that the young man was unrecognizable when he came back from Moscow.

«He was a very educated man; he was distinguished from the rest. But when he returned from Moscow, we didn’t know him anymore. He talked about religion, and the different streams [of Islam]. He was somehow arrested by the police, but they didn’t find anything criminal so they let him go,» his classmate said.

Gone to Syria?

On March 5, Nasim went missing. Before he left, he didn’t say a word about any plans to his family.

His family later learned that the 28-year-old had bought an air ticket to Moscow, where he flew from Tajikistan’s Kulob airport.

A search by the Tajik authorities has so far failed to yield any information about what happened to Nasim, and his father, Abdulmajid Nabotov, is convinced that his son must have gone to Syria to join militants there.

The parents of another man from Farkhor district, 30-year-old Ubayda Naimov, told Radio Ozodi that the authorities told them that their son may also be in Syria. Naimov’s parents thought their son was a labor migrant in St. Petersburg, but he stopped calling home two months ago.

There is evidence to show that a common recruitment pathway for Tajiks and other Central Asian nationals is for IS to target labor migrants who have traveled to Russia to work.

If Nasim has joined militants in Syria after being radicalized in Moscow, his will apparently be the first reported case of a student being recruited while at university in the Russian capital.

Tajiks In Syria

Exact figures for the number of Tajiks fighting in Syria and Iraq are not known.

Russia’s Interfax news agency on April 1 quoted an anonymous source in the Tajik Interior Ministry as saying that at least 50 Tajiks have been killed fighting alongside IS, and that at least 300 Tajik nationals are currently in the ranks of the militants.

Radio Ozodi reported that the deaths of 60 Tajiks in Syria and Iraq has been officially confirmed. About 25 people from Tajikistan’s Kulob region are thought to be fighting alongside IS.

Edward Lemon, a doctoral candidate at the University of Exeter who tracks Tajik militants in Syria and Iraq, says he has found online evidence for 70 Tajik militants in Syria.

«But there are likely to be more who have traveled and whose existence has not been reported in the media. I think a figure of between 100 and 200 would be fairly accurate,» Lemon told RFE/RL last week.

Most Tajiks in Syria and Iraq are fighting alongside IS, Lemon says.

‘Please Come Home’

Abdulmajid Nabotov, whose son Nasim is thought to have joined IS in Syria, issued a heartfelt plea to the young man, asking him to come home.

«Nasim, my dear, wherever you are, please think about your parents. Jihad is nothing more than striving to improve your life. If you try to elevate your fatherland, that’s jihad, too. I’m asking you to come home. If you have really decided to wage jihad, then know that it is a mistake. You are being swindled; you’ve fallen into a trap. Please, come home,» Abdulmajid Nabotov said.

— Joanna Paraszczuk

http://www.rferl.org/content/islamic-state-tajikistan-/26933350.html

WASHINGTON — Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says the United States will «continue to advocate for free media and more open political systems» in Central Asia, a strategic region that lies between Russia, China, Afghanistan, and Iran.

In a speech at the Brookings Institution think tank on March 31 following a review of the U.S. strategy in Central Asia, Blinken said the United States will also «urge the release of people who are imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their political views or religious faith.»

Blinken said he was laying out a part of «the vision of our policy» in what he called «a region of enormous potential…that could act as an economic bridge from Istanbul to Shanghai and provide opportunities for our own businesses, technologies, and innovations to take root.»

He said the U.S. approach to the region will be based in part on the idea that the United States’ «own security is enhanced by a more stable, secure Central Asia that contributes to global efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism.»

He said such stability «can best be achieved if the nations of Central Asia are sovereign and independent countries, fully capable of securing their own borders, connected with each other and with the emerging economies of Asia, and benefiting from governments that are accountable to their citizens.»

Senior U.S. officials regularly say they are raising human rights issues with the governments in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, while saying a balanced approach is needed.

Rights advocates have accused the United States of engaging in a Faustian bargain that entails slighting human rights concerns in order to secure cooperation on counterterrorism and other security matters.

Blinken reiterated Washington’s view that U.S. efforts to boost trade in the region, including through Washington’s New Silk Road initiative, can be complementary to a parallel initiative by China to pour tens of billions of dollars into developing infrastructure in Central Asia.

«We don’t see China’s involvement in Central Asia in zero-sum terms,» he said.

Blinken stressed that the United States supports the right of governments in the region to forge their own economic and foreign policies.

He denounced «Russia’s actions on its periphery, including its violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine» and said Central Asian governments «understand the dangers posed by Russia better than most.»

Blinken added that the nations of Central Asia are «also feeling the impact of Russia’s economic weakness more than most.»

Russia’s economic troubles amid falling oil prices and Western sanctions over the Kremlin’s interference in Ukraine have had a ripple effect on Central Asian nations.

The decline in the value of the ruble has dented remittances from millions of Central Asian migrants working in Russia and put pressure local producers forced to compete against cheaper Russian goods.

«We understand that anxiety and we’re committed to leveraging our own economic tools to help Central Asia diversify their economies and interlink their markets,» Blinken said.

Blinken’s comments came after Richard Hoagland, the U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, said «patient» diplomacy is more effective than sanctions or «public naming and shaming» in efforts to improve the records of Central Asian nations in areas like human rights.

«What tends to work better is to build relationships with likeminded senior officials in those countries … who can then advocate their own views to their leadership,» Hoagland said at a March 30 event at Georgetown University in Washington.

The five Central Asian governments have faced criticism from rights watchdogs and Western officials for alleged rights abuses.

A «patient, traditional, reality-based diplomacy does consistently, on a case-by-case basis, work in Central Asia» where issues like human rights and religious freedoms are concerned, Hoagland said.

Hoagland added that Washington is «consistently engaged» with the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan — «to improve their track records on human rights with the clear recognition that effecting change in this area will be difficult and will definitely require long-term engagement.»

«Progress takes place slowly, and we must convince each government that reforms are in its national interests,» he added.

http://www.rferl.org/content/us-policy-central-asia-hoagland/26931565.html

A group of Tajik militants who claim to be fighting with the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria has posted a new video in which it threatens to transfer its activities from the Middle East and fight in Tajikistan, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, Radio Ozodi, has reported.

The 16-minute video was shared on the Russian-language Odnoklassniki social network on March 19 and shows a group of 16 masked militants, most of whom appear to be Tajiks. It is not possible to independently verify the date or the exact location in which the video was shot.

Tajikistan’s security authorities have yet to comment on the video, Radio Ozodi reported.

One masked militant said that the video was the militants’ final address from Syria and Iraq and that their next video could be filmed «from the mountains of Tavildara in central Tajikistan, or the Tajik capital, Dushanbe — or even from the Kremlin.»

One of the men in the video appears to be a notorious Tajik militant, known as Nusrat Nazarov or Abu Kholodi Kulobi, who says he is 38 years old and hails from the village of Charmagon in the Kulob district of Tajikistan. Nazarov claims to be now living in a suburb of Raqqa, an IS stronghold in Syria.

Nazarov addressed the Tajik government and pro-government religious leaders, saying that they would be «held accountable» for actions carried out against militants in the Central Asian state.

In a recent interview with Radio Ozodi, Nazarov said that his goal is to introduce Shari’ah law throughout the world, including among Native Americans.

Nazarov has also claimed that there are as many as 2,000 Tajiks fighting in IS, and that around 500 have been killed, figures that are almost certainly highly exaggerated.

The State Committee for the National Security of Tajikistan said in November that as many as 300 Tajiks have gone to join the fighting in Syria and Iraq. Edward Lemon from the U.K.’s University of Exeter, who researches and tracks Tajik militants in Iraq and Syria, has found evidence of over 60 documented Tajiks in Syria.

Would IS Send Its Tajiks To Fight In Tajikistan?

Nazarov’s boasts that he and his fellow IS militants will soon be fighting to impose their version of Shari’ah law in Tajikistan is also likely hyperbole.

There is no evidence that the IS leadership in Syria and Iraq is planning to send militants home to fight for the group.

A video released by Tajik IS militants in January explained that several Tajiks had asked permission from IS’s senior leadership to wage «jihad» in Tajikistan with the extremist group Jamaat Ansarullah, but had been refused.

The militant in that video, who gave his nom de guerre as Abu Umariyon, said that IS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told the Tajik group that they would «have to wait.»

That the IS leadership is not keen to allow its militants to leave Syria and Iraq and fight elsewhere is not surprising. IS cannot afford to risk losing its rank-and-file militants as it faces ongoing military pressure and sustained losses in both Syria and Iraq. In Syria, the militants have taken heavy losses from the U.S.-led coalition and Kurdish militias, while forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are also targeting IS militants. IS in Iraq is facing air strikes from the United States and its allies, as well as ground assaults and opposition from the Kurdish peshmerga and Iran-backed Shi’ite militias.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan said on March 21 that IS had been weakened in Iraq and Syria.

IS Is Expanding

Though IS is reluctant to allow its militants to leave for «jihad» elsewhere, as the group comes under increased military pressure in Syria and Iraq its leadership has welcomed the expansion of its influence into new parts of the world.

The IS leadership has purportedly accepted the pledges of allegiance made to it by militant groups outside of Syria and Iraq. In November, IS leader Baghdadiissued an audio recording accepting pledges of allegiance from groups in «The Haramayn [Saudi Arabia], Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Algeria.»

This month, IS accepted a pledge of allegiance from the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram.

In another sign of the increasing military pressure IS is facing, the group has released a number of videos calling on Western Muslims to carry out attacks on their home soil — but only if they are unable to join IS in Syria and Iraq.

Indeed, CIA chief Brennan noted that — even though IS has been weakened in Syria and Iraq — the group’s reach is extending beyond Iraq and Syria and that it will take a combined and extended international effort over the next decade to repel the threat.

— Joanna Paraszczuk

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-isis-islamic-extremism-threats/26915731.html

March 20, 2015

WASHINGTON — The United States has finalized a review of its strategy for Central Asia, a region facing economic and political uncertainty tied to Russia’s flagging economy amid the Ukraine conflict and the murky succession plans of aging regional autocrats.

Experts say that while Russia’s military interference in Ukraine last year was not the sole factor prompting the review, the reassessment shows the Kremlin’s actions continue to cause ripple effects across U.S. foreign policy.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration «recently completed an interagency policy review, which reaffirmed our enduring commitment to the people and governments of Central Asia,» a U.S. State Department spokesperson told RFE/RL.

The State Department, which spearheaded the policy review, declined to disclose details of the assessment or when they would be available. People familiar with the matter said they expect conclusions of the review to be made public in the coming weeks.

A congressional staffer told RFE/RL that the strategy would likely be made public in the form of a document that would «lay out goals and objectives for the region.»

The State Department spokesperson said that United States «will continue to work» with Central Asian governments «to uphold regional security, increase economic integration with regional and global markets, demonstrate respect for human rights and democratic governance, and promote other bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest.»

Recent statements from senior U.S. officials indicate the updated policy will not differ radically from Washington’s previous Central Asia strategy, which includes the New Silk Road initiative aimed at boosting regional trade to promote stability following the departure of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan.

While the pace of the New Silk Road plan has been sluggish, Richard Hoagland, the U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, said in a March 18 speech in Washington that the initiative «is our long-term strategy to make Central Asia, including Afghanistan, once again a crossroads of global commerce.»

«Progress is happening. Since 2009, intraregional trade in Central Asia has increased by 49 percent, and since 2011 the cost of moving goods across regional borders has decreased by 15 percent,» Hoagland said, adding that «still much remains to be done.»

Experts on Central Asia say Washington’s New Silk Road strategy is being trumped by China’s aggressive push to build its own «Silk Road» trade routes through Central Asia, details of which Beijing is expected to releasethis month.

U.S. officials say U.S. and Chinese efforts in the region are not mutually exclusive and can complement one another.

Russia, meanwhile, has secured oil-rich Kazakhstan, the region’s largest economy, as a member of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union, which another Central Asian republic, Kyrgyzstan, is set to join in May.

Kremlin Intentions

While the Central Asia policy review was not «strictly» prompted by Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine and subsequent annexation of Crimea in March 2014, Russia’s role in the conflict «certainly was on the minds of people who were putting that policy together,» says Paul Stronski, a former director for Russia and Central Asia on Obama’s National Security Council staff.

Senior U.S. officials discussing Central Asia in recent months have repeatedly said that Moscow has no right to force its agenda on governments in the region.

«We recognize that the countries of Central Asia have close political, economic, security, and people-to-people ties with Russia,» Hoagland said on March 18. «But we also maintain that no country has the right to unilaterally determine the political and economic orientation of another country.»

He added that «what Russia is doing in Ukraine is cause for concern for the countries of Central Asia» and accused Moscow of «blanketing» the region with «propaganda» that presents «a skewed and anti-American/anti-European interpretation of events.»

Russia has defended the annexation by claiming that Crimeans faced a threat of violent repression after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kyiv amid street protests in February 2014, an argument Kremlin critics and Western governments dismiss as false.

Russia has also denied accusations by Kyiv and the West that it has provided arms and personnel to pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.

John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan, says the events in Ukraine present a «specific twist» to the larger issue facing Central Asian states, namely how to «get along» surrounded by large powers who may not have «their best interests at heart.»

He noted comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said in August that «the Kazakhs never had any statehood» and that it would be beneficial for the Kazakh people to «remain in the greater Russian world.»

«Putin basically threw down a marker…when he called Kazakhstan an artificial country,» Herbst told RFE/RL.

Aging Autocrats

Both Stronski and Herbst say security threats, including the potential for Islamic extremism, remain serious in Central Asia as U.S. and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan. But while earlier U.S. policy in the region was focused largely on security issues, the updated U.S. policy needs to address «economic issues and some of the political modernization issues» in the region, Stronski told RFE/RL.

Central Asian governments have been hit hard by Russian financial troubles stemming from plummeting oil prices and Western sanctions. The falling ruble has dented remittances from millions of Central Asian migrants working in Russia and pressured local producers forced to compete against cheaper Russian goods.

Furthermore, the governments in the region — most notably in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — face uncertain political futures. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev and Uzbek President Islam Karimov, both in their 70s, have announced plans to seek reelection this year in ballots almost certain to see them remain in power.

«We have countries that are very much still based on sort of personality-based politics and not institutional-based politics, and so this does create problems in the long term, particularly as you get some very old leaders,» Stronski said.

Financial industry players have voiced similar concerns as well. «Future policy choices are difficult to predict in the medium term because of uncertainty surrounding the eventual succession of Mr. Nazarbaev, who is 74 years old,» the Standard & Poor’s ratings agency noted this month.

Emomali Rahmon and Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the respective strongmen presidents of Tajikistan and gas-rich Turkmenistan, are comparably entrenched atop their respective states with no clear successors.

Each of these leaders’ governments has faced criticism from rights watchdogs and Western officials for alleged rights abuses.

Senior U.S. officials insist they are raising these issues with Central Asian governments while saying a balanced approach is needed, a position some rights advocates criticize as a Faustian bargain to secure cooperation on counterterrorism and other security matters.

Fielding a question about a «new» U.S. strategy in Central Asia, Daniel Rosenblum, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia, told Voice of America’s Uzbek Service in January that the strategy addressed«political reforms» and «respect for human rights.»

«We have robust engagement with Uzbekistan on those issues, on issues of democracy and human rights, and on security, and we think it is possible to pursue both and try to maintain that balance in the relationship,» Rosenblum said.

http://www.rferl.org/content/central-asia-us-reassess-strategy/26911854.html