Page 18 - bne_newspaper_May 5 2017

Eurasia
May 5, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
Central Asia risks greater exposure to Islamic extremism
bne IntelliNews
Moves to outlaw Islamic movements in Central Asia, such as in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, have generally spawned further radicalisation of pro- hibited religious groups. Thus the mix of incompe- tence from the authorities, the use of radicalism as a deliberate political tool and rising socio-eco- nomic 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 weeks, from an Uzbek attacker
in Stockholm, to ethnic-Uzbek Kyrgyzstan-born Russian attackers in St Petersburg and the elimi- nation of an Uzbek Islamic State (IS) agent con- nected to a bar attack in Turkey. In the latest news to break, Russia arrested 12 Central Asian extremists from a group long present on Uzbeki- stan’s wanted list.
In the midst of such reports, Central Asia is in- creasingly 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 aforemen- tioned 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 Uz- bekistan, 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 frac- tion 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 terror- ism 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 the Is- lamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Instead, the post-Soviet governments usually find themselves dealing with disparate cells of radicals.
The rise of radical Islam in the region has most often been blamed on the regional economic crisis, as well as general poor socio-economic conditions for lower segments of society. However, Gussarova believes this explanation is too simple.