Page 48 - bne_Magazine_June_2017

48 I Eurasia bne June 2017
Central Asia risks greater exposure
..to Islamic extremism
Kanat Shaku in Almaty
Moves to outlaw Islamic move- ments in Central Asia, such
as in Uzbekistan and Tajiki- stan, have generally spawned further radicalisation of prohibited religious groups. Thus the mix of incompetence from the authorities, the use of radical- ism as a deliberate political tool and rising socio-economic hardship is seen continuing to exacerbate the region’s exposure to Islamic extremism.
Central Asia has been the subject of negative headlines in the Western and Russia media within in the last few months, from an Uzbek attacker in Stockholm, to ethnic-Uzbek Kyrgyzstan-born Russian attackers in St Petersburg and the elimination
of an Uzbek Islamic State (IS) agent connected to a bar attack in Turkey. Russia also arrested 12 Central Asian extremists from a group long present on Uzbekistan’s wanted list.
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In the midst of such reports, Central Asia is increasingly gaining a reputation as a hotbed for recruitment into
radical extremist groups such as IS.
It does not help that the region lacks reliable data to indicate the real number of radicalised individuals.
An overwhelming proportion of the aforementioned events are in one way or another tied to Uzbekistan, but the most populous Central Asian country is not the largest recruitment den for Islamic radicals.
“According to open sources, two years ago, [the number of radicalised] fighters was the largest in Tajikistan
– 600 people, [followed by] 500 in Uzbekistan, 350 in Turkmenistan,
250 in Kazakhstan and around 100 in Kyrgyzstan,” the director of Central Asia at the Institute for Strategic Studies, Anna Gussarova, tells bne IntelliNews.
The numbers add up to around 1,800 Central Asians, although not all are necessarily linked to IS. According to world estimates, the total number of IS militants stood at around 80,000
in mid-2015, meaning that Central Asia accounts for but a fraction of
the Islamic radicals fighting for Daesh.
Official figures are potentially skewed for most Central Asian countries, however, given that Uzbekistan’s government does not even disclose official figures.
In Kazakhstan, for example, “400 people were charged with extremism and terrorism in 2015”, according to Gussarova, though only three of the cases have been tied to Syria, she notes.
Most extremism in Central Asia does not express itself as IS or any other major terrorist movement activity. There are no large organised terrorist groups
in the region, with the exception of