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Afghanistan

To be removed from the Russian list of terrorists, the Taliban must fulfill three conditions

2023-09-30

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Mikhail Moshkin and Mikhail Zakharov

[REGNUM] On September 29, a delegation of the ruling Taliban movement in Afghanistan (recognized as terrorist by a decision of the Russian Supreme Court in March 2003) arrived in Russia for international negotiations.

At the time of their ban in the Russian Federation, the Taliban were an armed group fighting with the American contingent, US partners in Operation Enduring Freedom and the pro-Western Kabul government. As you know, the US-NATO operations “Freedom Sentinel” and “Resolute Support” ended in August 2021 with the hasty flight of the remnants of the Western contingent - and the restoration of the Taliban “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, seemingly “defeated” by the Americans back in 2001.

One of the Taliban leaders, former bodyguard Amir Khan Muttaqi, who now heads the emirate’s Foreign Ministry, also headed the Afghan delegation at the Moscow format negotiations, which this time are taking place in Kazan. The “Moscow format,” we recall, appeared in 2017 as a platform for peace negotiations on Afghanistan (which was then de jure ruled by the pro-American regime of Ashraf Ghani). The “format” now includes Russia, the main regional powers of the Middle East - Iran, Pakistan and India, and the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia.

As for the Taliban, as the organizers explained, the ruling group in Kabul is present at the conference on Afghanistan as guests, but not participants. “This is a fundamental difference,” emphasized Zamir Kabulov, the President’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Director of the Second Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an interview with RTVI.

Let us note once again that a representative delegation of an organization banned in Russia came, for example, to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum 2022. In March last year, Moscow issued accreditation to the first Afghan diplomat representing the new authorities (read: the Taliban).

Before the current negotiations in Kazan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that he does not plan to meet with the Taliban delegation in Kazan. “It was not Sergei Viktorovich who invited them, but I, as the president’s special representative. The minister does not bear any obligations to the guests I invited,” Kabulov explained.

Russia may recognize the interim Taliban government in the future,

...at some time when all have acknowledged that interim in this sense is better translated as permanent...

but its representatives must earn it by fulfilling their obligations, the special representative of the Russian President added. The question arises: how exactly can the Taliban earn recognition from Moscow?

TWO CONDITIONS FOR LEAVING THE BLACKLIST
The emirate’s authorities will need to resolve two key issues, Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club, told IA Regnum. In his opinion, this is, firstly, strengthening the fight against drug trafficking

...how are the Taliban to fight against drug trafficking when that’s their major non-donor income stream...

and, secondly, a consistent fight against terrorists themselves.

Terrorism is integral to their raison d’être. And all the terror groups in the country except for ISIS are boxes in the Taliban table of organization, so how are they to fight against them?

“We are talking about the liquidation in Afghanistan of the representative offices of al-Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Turkestan (banned in Russia) and other similar terrorist groups that threaten our allies in Central Asia,” Mendkovich explained.

*shrug* Ain’t gonna happen.

The procedure for exclusion from the blacklist is a matter of technique. Rosfinmonitoring monitors “lists of organizations and individuals associated with terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, compiled in accordance with decisions of the UN Security Council.” The same Rosfinmonitoring is in charge of inclusion in the terrorist list and exclusion from it based on information from the competent government agencies. Logically, in the case of the Taliban, we should be talking about the decision of the Russian court - and then Rosfinmonitoring comes into play.

But first of all, a decision must be made at the international level.

Back in 2021, Kabulov said that Russia could launch the procedure for removing the Taliban from the terrorist list only after the organization was removed from the relevant list by the UN Security Council. In June 2022, Russian Presidential Assistant for International Affairs Yuri Ushakov spoke in the same spirit: the Taliban could be removed from the UN Security Council sanctions list provided the fight against terrorism is intensified and human rights are respected.

The main thing is that the president also expressed a corresponding opinion. The decision to remove the Taliban from the list of terrorist organizations should be made at the UN level, Vladimir Putin explained at the 2021 Valdai Forum. “Depending on this, we stand in solidarity and will make a decision on exclusion from the list of terrorist organizations. It seems to me that we are approaching this... Russia’s position will be to move in this direction,” Putin was quoted as saying by RT.

“We don't consider them terrorists per se. This has been proven by the very course of life,” Zamir Kabulov explained the other day, adding that “the Taliban announced that they are not going to engage in global jihad or transfer their ideology and way of thinking to neighboring states.”

Huh. I never expected to see Russians pretend to be gullible.

One thing is clear: at the current negotiations in Kazan, the Taliban will not be “brought out of the shadows.” “The Moscow format meetings are precisely a political dialogue,” Kabulov emphasizes, and there are no plans to announce the removal of the Taliban from the Russian list of terrorist organizations.

Nevertheless, in the future, Russia will continue to maintain contacts with the Taliban - at least taking into account the new reality - and both sides are interested in this.

Russia demonstrating they are the alternative to America an the West, though in this case it doesn’t mesh well with their posture of protecting Christianity.

THIRD STUMBLING BLOCK
Another issue that our Foreign Ministry also mentions and which is clearly slowing down the process is the creation (instead of the current temporary governing bodies) of what is called an “inclusive government.” Simply put, a government that includes various ethno-religious, regional, clan and purely political forces in Afghanistan.

Seriously? Why on earth would the Taliban, who believe they just reconquered Afghanistan in order to reestablish their caliphate, accept accommodating those they believe they’ve conquered?

Now the government is dominated by Sunni Pashtuns (which is understandable, Pashtun Kandahar was and remains the base of the Taliban movement), but these people make up only 40% of the population. The north of Afghanistan is inhabited mainly by Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmen, in the center live the Hazaras (people of Mongolian origin, Shiites by religion), and in the southwest - the Baluchis.

The Taliban understand inclusivity in their own way - as the inclusion in the leadership of the country of representatives of the same Taliban, but from different regions and peoples of the country. “Now in the Taliban government, as they say, there are Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras. This is true. But all these ethnic representatives are all Taliban in political terms,” the Russian Foreign Ministry website quoted Sergei Lavrov as saying.

As we’ve already seen, non-Pashtun Talibs are still second class citizens in the Talib caliphate. Still, non-Talib non-Pashtuns are third class citizens... or worse.

This position, in fact, was “brought” to Kazan by I. O. Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. The inclusive government of Afghanistan has proven to be ineffective over the past 45 years, so neighboring countries should instead focus on supporting the existing cabinet formed by the Taliban, Muttaqi was quoted as saying by TASS . Let us explain - 45 years ago the pro-communist Saur Revolution took place, which was soon followed by the entry of the Soviet contingent into Afghanistan.

WE'LL HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WOMEN'S LIBERATION
The prospect of sharing power hardly attracts the Taliban, but they cannot completely ignore such calls and refuse to visit Kazan. Last time, the Taliban obviously did not listen to Moscow’s opinion on an inclusive government, so the fourth meeting of the mechanism was held in November 2022 in Moscow without their participation.

The food is good, the beds are soft, and the unbeliever women are pretty, so long as the Taliban pretend to consider the negotiating points. And there is also the possibility that the other side will renew throwing money at the problem.

Politically, both sides need the meeting, Omar Nessar, director of the Center for the Study of Modern Afghanistan at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told IA Regnum.

For Moscow, this is a diplomatic plus - both from the point of view of the fact that other formats of dialogue, except for Moscow, have gone into the shadows, and from the desire to demonstrate the effectiveness of Russian diplomacy, taking into account Moscow’s known relations with the West. “The Taliban really need this meeting, since they are virtually isolated. Over the past year, even high-ranking foreign diplomats have stopped visiting them. Therefore, this is a good opportunity for them to once again demonstrate that they are not isolated, communicate with the outside world and try to solve problems,” Nessar notes.

The Taliban will have to navigate between the wishes of the countries surrounding Afghanistan (on which humanitarian aid depends) and local realities, where the Taliban are unlikely to want to include anyone other than brothers in arms in the government or give women the right to secondary education, experts conclude.

Oh good — someone understands the dynamic here.

Link

India-Pakistan

ATC indicts three in Karachi airport attack case

2015-03-08

[DAWN] An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
indicted three suspects on Saturday over involvement in a Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP)-claimed attack on Karachi's Jinnah International Airport in June 2014.

The three suspects -- Sarmad Siddiqui, Asif Zaheer and Nadeem alias Burger (also alias Mullah) -- were produced in court amid tight security. All three pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
to the charges against them.

The court has now summoned all witnesses in the case for the next hearing scheduled for March 14.

An ATC in 2014 had remanded Siddiqui, Zaheer and Nadeem for allegedly providing logistical support, funds and weapons to the snuffies that attacked the Karachi airport.

At that time, the Investigating Officer (IO) had submitted a report which said that the suspects were tossed in the clink
Please don't kill me!
on Oct 28 and two of them were found carrying unlicensed weapons.

The IO had contended that during initial interrogation the suspects had disclosed that they purchased 9mm and CF 98 pistols by using the license of arms dealer Hameedur Rehman and handed over the weapons to Malik Mumtaz Awan and others.

The brazen five-hour attack by snuffies took place at Karachi's international airport last year killing 28 people, including 10 attackers.

The attack had started late Sunday when gunnies disguised as police guards stormed the terminal after opening fire with machine guns and a rocket launcher. This attack led to the launching of Operation Zarb-e-Azb
..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)...
in North

Wazoo to control growing militancy in the country.

The same year, the attack's criminal mastermind Abu Abdul Rehman al Maani was killed during overnight ~~Arclight~~ airstrikes in 2014 carried out in action by fighter jets controlled jointly by Pakistain Air Force (PAF) and Pakistain Army in North Waziristan.

Intelligence and military sources had told Dawn that Abu Abdur Rehman Al Maani was considered a key commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), also now famous by the name of Islamic Movement of Turkestan. The IMU, an organization of snuffies mostly from the central Asian Uzbek state, had claimed that its jacket wallahs had carried out the attack in alliance with TTP.

Link

India-Pakistan

Karachi airport attack mastermind killed in N Waziristan

2014-06-17

[DAWN] The criminal mastermind of the Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
airport attack, Abu Abdul Rehman al Maani was killed during the overnight air strikes carried out by Pakistain Air Force (PAF) fighter jets and the Pakistain Army jointly in North

Wazoo early morning Sunday, military sources told Dawn.com.

Intelligence and military sources told Dawn.com that Abu Abdur Rehman Almani is considered a key commander of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), also now famous by the name of Islamic Movement of Turkestan. The IMU, an organization of gunnies mostly from the central Asian Uzbek state, had claimed that its jacket wallahs carried out the attack on the Karachi airport.

There are also reports of some East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) forces of Evil also killed in the strikes, considered a big blow to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and the ETIM network in the North Waziristan Agency. However,
some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them...
there was no confirmation from the military on the identity of the dear departed.

The ETIM is a separatist turban outfit blamed for numerous terror attacks in China's restive western region of Xinjiang.

The Chinese government had recently pressed Pakistain to take action against the Uighur separatists based in North Waziristan.

The movement's principle aim is to establish an independent Islamic state called East Turkestan.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Tajikistan has caught 'dozens' of Uzbek Islamists

2009-04-20

Dozens of suspected members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a group seeking Islamist coups in Central Asian countries, have been arrested in Tajikistan since 2009 on suspicion of terrorism and coup plotting, a senior security official said. "I can't name the exact number of the IMU members who have been arrested, but there are dozens of them," Abdullo Nazarov, deputy chairman of Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security, told reporters.

Nazarov said the IMU had split up into three parts - the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Movement of Turkestan, and a group that allegedly joined Al Qaeda. The latter is led by Tohir Yoldashev, an Uzbek citizen who has taken leadership of the IMU as well and had declared a jihad on the Uzbek government, the official said. "IMU members whom we have arrested claim that Yoldashev is alive," Nazarov said.

The IMU has its headquarters in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and is chiefly active in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan but IMU militants are quite often arrested in neighboring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

A Tajik military training ground 50 kilometers from the capital Dushanbe was the site of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization anti-terrorism military exercise whose final phase ended on Saturday. Uzbekistan, though an SCO member, refused to take part in the exercise, which brought together the organization's other members - Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and China.

Link

India-Pakistan

The Pak state of general panic

2007-09-24

By Vikram Sood

All is not well in Musharrafs realm as the General faces multiple crises of legitimacy, credibility and authority. The entire trans-border of Pakistan-Afghanistan is today a vast SEZ of International Terror Inc. International terrorists like Tahir Yuldashev (Islamic Movement of Turkestan), various factions of the Taliban with Baitullah Mehsud as the most important leader in South Waziristan, Abu Kasha, the Iraqi, and Najmuddin, the Uzbek, operate in North Waziristan along with the Al Qaeda and others. They conduct their business from these safe havens.

The pattern of terrorist violence after the Lal Masjid episode has changed. Twelve soldiers were killed in Dera Ismail Khan in a suicide attack, about 300 soldiers were kidnapped by the Taliban in Waziristan early in September, 12 policemen were kidnapped from Bannu, a "settled area" of NWFP, unlike the ungovernable FATA. A bomb blast in Rawalpindi in September killed 29 personnel, mostly from the ISI. On the day US deputy secretary of State John Negroponte was in Islamabad, a Pushtoon officer blew himself up killing 19 commandos of the SSG in Tarbela, south of Islamabad. Terror now stalks the sanctum sanctorum of Pakistan the Pakistan Army.

Meanwhile, helicopter gun ships were once again deployed this year in the Makeen area of South Waziristan. This was in retaliation against tribesmen who had repeatedly attacked a military post on the night of September 12, killing 124 security personnel. Artillery was used against tribesmen in Razmak and Datta Khel in North Waziristan.

It is not easy to kidnap 300 armed and trained personnel. It is not known whether these soldiers, surprised and overpowered by overwhelming force, had voluntarily surrendered without a fight, or had refused to fight.

If they had surrendered, then they had no will to fight. But if they had refused to fight, possibly by saying that they were not trained to fight other Muslims, then this could only mean that the Pakistan Army has problems that are more serious than imagined.

Most of these incidents, especially the kidnapping, the bomb blasts in Rawalpindi against the ISI and the suicide attack in the high security SSG campus, mean that the attackers had accurate intelligence in each case. It also means that this intelligence emanated from within these set-ups. Recall that terrorists had perfect intelligence about Gen. Musharrafs movements when they almost succeeded in assassinating him three years ago in Rawalpindi. In his autobiography, In the Line of Fire, Musharraf has mentioned that one of the conspirators was from the SSG. Musharraf just got lucky.

Earlier this year, Pakistani authorities disclosed that about 1,400 people had been killed in over 100 military operations in South and North Waziristan. Clashes between the tribesmen and the security forces have continued for some years now, but the frequency and the efficacy of the attacks on the security forces have increased. This is especially noticeable after the commando action in Lal Masjid in July 2007: 300 persons were killed, many of whom were Pushtoons and from the Waziristan area.

A Pakistan ministry of interior document admitted that government forces had forfeited authority to the Taliban and their allies, and even places like Peshawar, Kohat and Nowshera were facing Talibanisation, that the security forces in NWFP and the tribal region had been outgunned and outnumbered. (There are about 80,000 to 100,000 troops in the region.)

It is apparent that Islamic radicals have been gaining in Pakistan and their strength worries even elected parties like the MMA in NWFP. The regime invariably handles the Taliban and religious extremists with kid gloves, for they are Islamic warriors, armed and dangerous, with sympathisers in high places. On the other hand, Nawaz Sharifs short lived homecoming was handled swiftly and more with bravado than self assurance. It was the act of a regime that is getting desperate to cling to power and panicking that nothing is working in its favour. Musharraf may have succeeded, in his own eyes, of having got rid of the "problem," but this is likely to come back to haunt him.

Sixty years ago, Pakistan had only one monopoly shareholder the United Kingdom. Then the United States took over and today Pakistan is actually like a failed MNC with the major stake holders the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia trying to shore up this failing company. The "Chief Executive" (that was what Musharraf called himself when he ousted Nawaz) has been underperforming, but has to be rescued. That is why there have been international managers like Messrs Boucher and Negroponte rushing into Islamabad to support the CEO in public and admonish him in private.

China, the fourth shareholder in Pakistan, is worried too as its citizens continue to be killed in Baluchistan or are taken hostage elsewhere. Further, Uighur Islamists from Xinjiang have been receiving training along with Uzbeks, Tajiks and Chechens in the Waziristan areas. Pakistani troops began hunting for Uighur Muslims in Waziristan along with their Uzbek and Tajik sympathisers. Hasan Mahsum, the leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, who was wanted by the Chinese authorities, was killed in a gunfight with Pakistani troops in October 2004. A week later, militants kidnapped two Chinese engineers from South Waziristan, a uranium rich area. Earlier this year, the Pakistan Army launched a massive attack against the Uzbeks and Uighurs in South Waziristan suspected by the Chinese to be carrying out subversion in Xinjiang. Very few survived this attack and the rest fled to North Waziristan.

Across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the situation in the Pushtoon areas of south and east Afghanistan remains grim for President Hamid Karzai. Nato forces have been unable to assert themselves and the Taliban have killed 300 Afghan policemen in recent months.

The battle now seems to be more than a battle between the Taliban and foreign troops or Afghan troops. It has become a battle between the Pushtoon in Afghanistan versus the foreigners, and between the Pushtoon in Pakistan and the rest of the Pakistanis in Pakistan. This is happening in a country where the regime is wary of even renaming NWFP as Pakhtoonkhwa for fear that this may sow the seeds of Pushtoon nationalism.

The Pakistan Army in the last 60 years has begun to resemble the East India Company, acquiring prime land at privileged prices, managing all trade and industrial houses in the country, running the countrys logistic systems, constructing highways and playing politics, setting up the Mohajirs against the Punjabis and religious elements against the nationalists. The Pakistan Army has a country to exploit. This has made Pakistan a global rogue State but no one is willing to say so.

A regime that is running scared of unarmed politicians, and either connives with or appeases terrorists, and in the process violates every written statute, is staring at a bleak future. When leaders openly disregard laws and the Constitution, then the followers can only do worse. Gen. Vinod Sehgal in his book Restructuring Pakistan (2001) had five main worries about Pakistan. These were the Talibanisation of Pakistan, a civil war breaking out in the country, further spread of State-sponsored terrorism from the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, the spread of nuclear materials from Pakistan and the spread of regressive Islam into the subcontinent. It seems all this is taking place. Maulana Abu Ala Mawdoodi was prophetic when seeing the bloodshed and the killings during the partition of India, he remarked that "the bloody birth pangs of Pakistan" were "predicting the birth of a monster and not a human being."

The worst is yet to be.

Vikram Sood is a former chief of RAW

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Prosecution of alleged Kyrgyz terrorists begins

2006-08-31

BISHKEK: Six alleged Islamic radicals went on trial in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday for alleged involvement in an armed border incursion in May that left nine people dead.

... all six, including a Kyrgyz woman, are members of the banned radical Islamic party Hizbut Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Turkestan...

The five Kyrgyz citizens and one of neighboring Uzbekistan are standing trial in the southern city of Osh on charges of murder, setting up a criminal group and inciting religious and ethnic hatred, said southern Batken regional prosecutor Ryskul Baktybayev. He said all six, including a Kyrgyz woman, are members of the banned radical Islamic party Hizbut Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Turkestan. They were arrested during a probe into the May 12 attacks on Tajik and Kyrgyz border posts. Three Tajik border officers, five troops and one civilian were killed while nine Kyrgyz were wounded in the May clashes in the Batken region.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Long but extremely revealing interview with convicted IMU member

2005-12-01

A Tashkent city court delivered a guilty verdict against members of the Akromiylar movement who took part in the Andizhan events (May, 12-13, 2005). The authorities allege that militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) were also involved. Shukhrat Masirokhunov, 34, a former chief of the IMU counterintelligence service who was extradited from Pakistan several months ago, is now awaiting trial in Tashkent. He faces 20 years in prison.

It is widely believed that people join the militants out of despair. Do you come from a poor family?

Well, my father was a CPSU regional committee functionary in the city of Andizhan. I never walked to or from school but went in a car. When I finished Grade 10, my father gave me a Model 6 Zhiguli sedan. I have a degree in history from the local university.

I worked at the Russian Communist Youth League (Komsomol) regional committee and then at the regional administration. I engaged in privatization programs and controlled an investment fund. Operations with securities brought as much money in a single day as an ordinary person might not even earn in 10 years.

So how did a Komsomol activist end up in the IMU?

Very easy. An ideological vacuum [that came with the breakup of the Soviet Union] was soon filled. First, they talked at the highest possible level about the need to restore Islamic values and then Muslims were made into enemies. I probably had more money than was good for me â drinking, playing around with girls, you know, leading an unhealthy lifestyle. Then I got sick: a stomach ulcer. One day a friend advised me to live like a good Muslim â stop drinking, start praying. I joined a Koran study group. We met and talked. Someone said there was a madrasa in Chechnya that was open to all those willing to join. I went there in 1998.

There was a training center called Kavkaz (Caucasus), near the village of Avtury, and I was accepted. At first, we studied religion and then took a course of combat training. There were about 50 Uzbeks there. The teachers were Arabs who spoke fluent Russian. It was there that I met Khattab. He was a real soldier and a cheerful guy who liked a good joke. Basayev was just a politician, but a very smart one. After a year of studies, I decided to leave: the local climate was humid and I caught pneumonia. Before leaving, I received instructions to send money to Chechnya to support the Uzbek jamaat. It was also planned to abduct a number of children from rich families in Tashkent, mainly Jewish. They were to be held in Kazakhstan, while ransom would be paid to people based in Chechnya. But after a series of bomb attacks in Tashkent in the winter of 1999, I had to run away. The abductions were carried out by the brothers Yuldashev and Murad Kaziev: We had trained in Chechnya together.

Eventually, I and several other men got to Afghanistan â via Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Iran, to the Char Asyab camp near Jalalabad.

Did you take part in the Andizhan events?

No, it was probably the work of the Islamic Jihad of Uzbekistan: they pulled out of the IMU. They are even more radical and intransigent. They are mostly young men.

But are events of this type not coordinated, for example, by al-Qaeda?

Al-Qaeda translates as âfoundation,â âbaseâ. So we also began with a base, but now everyone is on his own. Information and instructions are issued via the Internet. There was an al-Qaeda camp adjacent to ours in Chechnya, but the two kept entirely separate from each other. We had mainly Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz, while they had Arabs and Europeans, but some recruits occasionally moved from one camp to the other. There was no rigid structure.

For example, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. He is portrayed as a bin Laden representative, but this is not so; he is on his own. We got in touch with him not very long ago, offering to help, but he refused. I met with Zarqawi two years ago. He did not stand out in any special way. At that time, I was higher within our hierarchy.

Are you acquainted with bin Laden?

Would not say acquainted, but I have met him on several occasions. He addressed us in Afghanistan in 2000. He said that he was pleased to see representatives from 56 countries there and that we should unite. Some people proposed a series of attacks in a number of countries, for example, blow up a dam near Tashkent or explode a âdirty bombâ. But he said that âwe will have time to do that yet.â He asked whether there were any physicists among us.

There was also talk to the effect that the raw materials for a âdirty bombâ had been bought in Russia and Ukraine, specifically from a scrap-yard for decommissioned nuclear submarines.

Are you saying that al-Qaeda has a âdirty bombâ?

Yes, I think it does. At least Takhir (Takhir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who is now in Pakistan or Afghanistan. â Editor.) told me that bomb material had been acquired from Dr. Abdul Kadyr Khan in Pakistan, who, as is known, met with bin Laden in Kandahar. I also know that the Americans found two nuclear research laboratories in Kandahar, but for some reason the fact was suppressed.

In 2000, I took a 20-day training course in making chemical agents and explosives. A poison can be made literally from any material â cigarettes, honey, and even bread. We worked at a special laboratory near Jalalabad. Our instructor was Abu Habbob Misriy, a former chemistry teacher from Egypt. There were about 200 men taking that course, including 14 or 15 from the North Caucasus who returned to Russia a year later.

There was a similar laboratory in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, where chemical agents were synthesized by a hired scientist, apparently a Russian. That laboratory was then supposed to be moved from Georgia to Pakistan. There were plans to start using bacteriological and chemical weapons. The first targets for attack were to be in Italy and Moscow â why, I do not know.

Who funds all these camps?

I do not know about all of them, but we received money and weapons from the Taliban. There were no limitations: we got as much as we asked for. For their part, their funds purportedly came from donations, but there was too much money to have come from donations. Generally, money was not a problem. I spent seven years in Afghanistan and I regularly sent money home â often quite large amounts, up to $10,000. To do that, I had to travel to Iran since Western Union did not operate in Afghanistan. I often went there on business trips. We had no problem crossing the border: A vehicle from the other side would come and take us there.

What were your duties in Afghanistan?

I was to expose enemy agents, test and run background checks on our people, and recruit our own agents. The last task was by far the easiest. If a police officer gets $150 to $200 a month, hates his boss and distrusts his state, it is very easy to buy him.

Each new arrival was placed under a one-month quarantine. He was tested and studied very closely. For example, at lunch somebody knocks his plate out of his hands. How will a person behave in this situation? Or he is given psychotropic drugs before going to bed, and we listen to everything he says in his sleep.

Did you expose many enemy agents?

Yes, we did. Once we even caught a Federal Security Service agent. He was called Khashim, from the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. He confessed everything. I even spoke with his mother on the telephone from Afghanistan and tried to get in touch with his FSB minder but unfortunately did not get through. I turned him over to the Taliban. Subsequently, he ended up with the Americans who took him to Guantanamo.

The enemy agents that we caught were, as a general rule, used to disseminate false or misleading information. We did not kill them but used them for our own interests.

Do intelligence and security services from other countries also help you?

Do you know how special operations against militants are conducted in Pakistan? They will pin us down in some place and the situation seems to be hopeless, but then the Pakistani soldiers show us an escape route.

If Pakistan goes to war with us, the country will explode because the people sympathize with us. So they pretend to be helping the United States, while in fact they are helping us.

Where is bin Laden? In Pakistan. They cannot catch him? Thatâs because they do not really want to catch him.

But you were detained in Pakistan, right?

Yes, in Peshawar. I was certain that the Pakistanis would let me go. They promised not to extradite me to Uzbekistan. When I was in a local jail, U.S. intelligence officers talked to me on several occasions. I was blindfolded and taken somewhere. I did not see their faces, but they spoke Farsi with me.

Did they interrogate you?

No, they tried to recruit me. I was offered cooperation. I was to take part in some operations in the Caucasus, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and in return for that they promised to get me into Europe or some Arab country. They also said that it was senseless to fight against the Americans in Afghanistan and that our common enemy was the Karimov regime: it had to be brought down for democracy to be established there.

I refused since I thought that the Pakistanis would release me. I also thought that Takhir would bail me out. It turned out that he had ditched me.

Have there been other contacts between the Americans and your men?

They tried to get in touch with Takhir Yuldashev. They met last winter in Kabul. In addition to Takhir, there was also Mawlawi Sayyed (the leader of the Islamic Movement of Afghanistan. â Ed.), as well as other field commanders. They promised to help us.

The Americans are also playing a double game: They are fighting us but also trying to set us against others.

What is happening in Afghanistan? Who is in control?

The Americans control Kabul (but only in the daytime) and several bases, but they are afraid to stick their noses out of them. As a matter of fact, it is not a case of them looking for us but us searching them out. We will mine an area around their base and then fire a missile and wait. First, helicopters arrive and then people â Afghans: they are always sent in first; they are paid $100 to do that. The Afghans are followed by Americans aboard Hummer vehicles, and we blow them up.

Or do you know how they run that weapons buy-back program? An old Afghan man will bring an old Soviet-era assault rifle and they will pay him $300 in compensation. Then he will go and buy a brand new rifle for just $100. Weapons are easily available. In Tajikistan, it is your Russian servicemen who sell them.

The Americans will pull out of Afghanistan: there is no way they can hold on there. And they will also have to leave Iraq.

What is the IMU like today?

An Islamic movement, party or organization â whichever you like best. Except that it is not IMU but IMT â the Islamic Movement of Turkestan. This is what it is called now because it is comprised of representatives of all Central Asian republics plus Uyghurs.

Once our organization had a dozen members, but now there are hundreds of members and thousands of supporters in various republics. The movement is led by Takhir Yuldashev, but he is not a real leader. He is, rather, a politician inclined to compromise. The late Namangani was an entirely different matter: People were ready to follow him to the end.

Where are the militant training camps based?

Where they have always been based â in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Those that I know of are located on the border between these two countries â in the Khanta Thal gorge and near the village of Wana. Each has about 100 men â from Central Asia and Russia, and there are also Arabs. There are camps in Tajikistan and there are plans to set them up in Kyrgyzstan.

But surely this is impossible without high-level support?

It is there all right. In Kyrgyzstan, we are supported by a local drug baron, Erkinbayev, as well as a member of parliament. I do not know his name, but he went to Iran to meet with Makhmud Rustamov, who was in charge of external relations. They discussed Kyrgyz POWs who we had taken during the Batken events.

One route from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan lies through Tajikistan and then on to Kyrgyzstan. Our men were carried there in vehicles from the Tajik Emergency Situations Ministry. This ministry helped many of our men to get jobs and housing. For example, Rasul Okhunov, a member of our movement, worked for the ministry.

Incidentally, U.S. instructors â specialists in explosive demolition and commando operations â trained government servicemen at the Ministryâs bases in Kairakkum, Taboshar and Shurabe.

Have you been subjected to âenhanced interrogation techniquesâ in Uzbekistan?

There was no need. We are all professionals. I know that today there is no problem getting any information from a person so I cooperated voluntarily.

Where is your family now?

My mother and brother are in jail here in Uzbekistan. My wife and children are in Pakistan. I hope that they will be taken care of.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

IMU: A terrorist movement in eclipse

2005-02-11

The Uzbek regime of Islam Karimov held parliamentary elections in December, simultaneously with the contested second round of voting in Ukraine. As a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Tashkent government is openly anxious about the possibility of rapid and extensive democratic reform spreading throughout the former Soviet republics, at the same time as it focuses on the global war on terrorism and its military alliance with the U.S., which commenced after September 11, 2001.

The effectiveness of Uzbekistan in the anti-terror alliance has not, however, been reinforced by the authoritarian stance assumed by Karimov's government. While the Uzbek regime has used severe repression against the adherents of radical Islam since the early 1990s, the U.S. government has not turned a blind eye against blatant abuses. Moreover a variety of interests in the country—in particular democracy activists and the followers of traditional Islam—are lobbying hard for more openness.

Meanwhile, the Islamist website Muslim Uzbekistan denounced the electoral process as "at least as crooked and bogus as Iraq's in 2002 or Ukraine's in 2004." [1] When the parliamentary vote was held, memories were still fresh of the murky terrorist incidents of spring 2004, followed by the trials of the 15 accused, and a new round of attacks, in July 2004. Responsibility for both waves of terror was at first ascribed by Uzbek authorities and other sources to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), more recently known as the Islamic Movement of Turkestan (IMT), as well as the Pan-Islamic organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), and a shadowy entity called Uzbekistan Islamic Jihad. During the trial, however, the Uzbek government charged defendants with belonging to a new movement, Jamoat, allegedly linked to al-Qaeda; all 15 of the accused were found guilty and received prison sentences of six to 18 years.

Link

Central Asia

Islamic Group Claims Uzbekistan Attacks

2004-04-11

A previously unknown Islamic group claimed responsibility Sunday for a recent string of bombings and shootings that killed at least 47 people in Uzbekistan. In a statement posted on at least three militant Islamic Web sites, the Jihad Islamic Group said the attacks were launched in retaliation for the secular Uzbek regime's oppression of devout Muslims.

The "Jihad Islamic Group," see, is different from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and different form the Islamic Movement of Turkestan, and different from Hizb ut-Tahrir...

It was the first publicized claim of responsibility for the four days of explosions, suicide attacks and assaults on police that began March 28. The attacks killed 10 police officers and four civilians. Thirty-three alleged terrorists were also killed in the attacks that Uzbek officials have blamed on international terrorists linked to al-Qaida. "The Jihad Islamic Group is responsible for all the jihad operations that took place and are still going on in the Islamic state of Uzbekistan," the statement said. "These operations came as a response to the injustice and brutality practiced by the infidel leaders in this country," the statement said.

Link

Central Asia

Uzbek Terrorists Said Trained by al-Qaida

2004-04-09

By BURT HERMAN
Burt then goes on to pooh-pooh most of what he writes...
The suspects behind a wave of suicide bombings and attacks on police in Uzbekistan got military training from Arab instructors who also taught al-Qaida fighters, the country's top prosecutor said Friday. Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov also said the militants were influenced by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist Islamic group that claims to disavow violence, and the Islamic Movement of Turkestan — a terrorist group believed to have emerged from the remains of an Uzbek group decimated in U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan.

That'd be the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan...

Kadyrov did not offer any evidence or take questions from reporters at his news briefing.

"So he's probably lying..."

Uzbekistan has been keen to portray itself as the latest victim of global terrorism, but the authoritarian regime has created many enemies at home through its oppressive policies and crackdown on Muslims who worship outside state-affiliated mosques. At least 47 people died in the recent attacks, including 33 alleged terrorists and 10 police, Uzbek officials say.

In my teeny-tiny little mind, that makes them the latest victim of global terrorism, regardless of any actions on the gummint's part...

The violence was the first unrest here since Uzbekistan became a key U.S. ally after the Sept. 11 attacks and allowed hundreds of American troops to use a southern military base. Kadyrov said 45 people were under arrest and nine were under investigation in connection with four days of explosions, assaults on police and Central Asia's first-ever suicide bombings. He said 403 people were detained and later released. The groups behind the attacks, which began March 28, were formed in 2000 in the capital Tashkent and the surrounding region, as well as in central Bukhara province. Kadyrov referred to the alleged terror cells as a "Jamoat," which means "society" in Uzbek, and said they aimed to overthrow the Uzbek government and establish an Islamic state.

Chechnya's overrun by jamaats, or dzhamaats, as they call them in that area. So're most other countries where they have mosques...

"Investigators have data that the Jamoat's aims and religious ideas — terrorist acts involving self-sacrifice — are based on ideas of Hizb ut-Tahrir, strengthened by radical ideas of the Islamic Movement of Turkestan terrorist group and other Islamic extremist trends," Kadyrov said.

That'd be my guess, too, though I'd have thought IMU remnants would be involved...

Regional officials and analysts have described the Islamic Movement of Turkestan as an outgrowth of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan — a terror group seeking the overthrow of the secular Uzbek regime and blamed for an alleged 1999 assassination attempt on President Islam Karimov that killed 16 people. The IMU fought alongside the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan in 2001 against the U.S.-backed northern alliance, and hundreds of the IMU's fighters were believed killed. The new group is believed to include the IMU as well as other extremist groups, including Uighur separatists from China's predominantly Muslim Xinjiang province.

So I guess it actually does include the IMU remnants, just under a new name, probably with new management...

Uzbekistan has long sought to label Hizb ut-Tahrir — which seeks to establish a worldwide Islamic state — as a breeding ground for terrorists.

Probably they want to apply that label to the Hezb because it's accurate...

But the group has never been linked to a terror attack, and its London office denied any involvement in the latest Uzbek attacks. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned across Central Asia, but the U.S. government has not labeled it a terror group.

It should, even if it does keep its hands overtly clean...

Kadyrov said the militant groups behind the attacks were headed by a single leader known as the "Great Amir" who was located outside Uzbekistan. He refused to say where.

Riyadh? Peshawar? London? Oh, c'mon! Tell us!

"The leader of the criminal organization controlled and coordinated the activity of the Jamoat, maintaining ties with international terrorist groups, ensuring funding and these groups' training at special camps," Kadyrov said. "Their training at guerrilla camps was conducted by Arab instructors who also trained al-Qaida militants." The prosecutor said investigators found computer files at the home of an alleged terrorist with documents on training in "Pakistan and other states." He claimed the militants had underground contacts in four countries, which he did not identify.

Pakistan, Soddy Arabia, Iran and Syria?

Besides a few pictures of alleged extremist literature, Uzbek authorities have not made public any concrete evidence of links between the suspects and foreign terrorist groups.

So it prob'ly doesn't really exist, does it, Burt?

Human rights groups have expressed concerns that authorities could use the attacks to deepen a crackdown on independent Muslims in Uzbekistan.

"Human rights" groups always make those kinds of noises. I've yet to see a "human rights group" stop a terrorist attack...

But Kadyrov said "during the investigation, we will insure strict protection of human rights and we will make sure that no innocent people will be held responsible."

Link

Central Asia

Central Asia: Islamic radicals regrouping

2003-07-02

BISHKEK: Members of an armed Islamic group crushed by US-led forces in 2001 have regrouped under a new name in Central Asia and are forging fresh ties with other militant organisations, Kyrgyz officials warned Wednesday. Having received 400,000 dollars (346,000 euros) from international terror funds, remnants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which staged cross-border incursions until 2001, âare attempting to penetrate Central Asia from Afghanistan,â said Tokon Mamytov, chairman of Kyrgyzstanâs national security service. The secular leadership of this former Soviet republic has long been concerned at the possibility of a resurgence by the IMU, whose leader, Uzbek warlord Juma Namangani, was reportedly killed during the US-led overthrow of Afghanistanâs Taliban leadership. There is solid evidence of involvement in recent bombings in Bishkek and the second city Osh by former IMU members who have renamed themselves the Islamic Movement of Turkestan, Boris Poluektov, another official of the national security service, said.

Well, that oughta throw anybody chasing them off their trail. The false noses and chin whiskers help, too, but I'm not sure about the blond wigs...

Poluektov added that this reformed movement had âformed close tiesâ with Western Chinese Islamic separatists and with the Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation, a group which Western observers have always considered non-violent despite its ambition to create an Islamic state in Central Asia.

Hey! I'm western. I'm an observer! I don't consider them non-violent...

Link

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