Tajikistan clashes raise fears central Asia could be new target for Islamist militants

DEADLY CLASHES in Tajikistan have raised fears that ex-Soviet central Asia could be a target for Islamist militants moving north across porous borders from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A group linked to al-Qaeda claimed responsibility yesterday for an ambush last Sunday that killed at least 28 Tajik soldiers near the country’s rugged mountain frontier with Afghanistan.

That followed another foresight near the border that officials say killed 20 Taliban fighters and one Tajik soldier, as security forces hunted 25 men who escaped from prison in late August, after being jailed for fomenting unrest and planning to overthrow the government.

But the violence has not been restricted to the remote eastern highlands of Tajikistan, the scene of fierce fighting in the 1990S between forces loyal to former Soviet officials and a loose coalition of Islamists and nationalists, in which about 100,000 people died.

Earlier this month, the capital Dushanbe was rocked by an explosion in a night club that injured five people, and Tajikistan’s first car bombing in five years killed two policemen and injured at least 25 other people in the northern city of Khujand.

The secular administration of President Imomali Rakhmon has condemned what it calls rising radicalism in Tajikistan, the grindingly poor and corrupt country that he has run for 18 years.

More than 100 members of banned groups have been jailed this year for allegedly plotting to topple the government, including Afghans and Russians from the volatile north Caucasus, where rebels fighting for independence have come under increasing Islamist influence.

Mr Rakhmon has also criticised madrasahs and the growing use of the hijab by Tajik women.

While the government blames militants arriving from neighbouring Afghanistan for the unrest, many Tajiks say frustration with the country’s parlous economy, Mr Rakhmon’s suppression of all opposition and pervasive graft help drive young people towards radical groups.

Experts say this public anger with oppressive and corrupt regimes is widespread in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as well as Tajikistan, making central Asia a potentially fruitful base and recruitment hub for Islamist militants who are under pressure from Nato-led forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The weekend attack on Tajik troops was claimed by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which called it “our response to Tajikistan’s government, which has lately shut down 1,000 mosques, which arrests Muslims without any reason and prohibits women from wearing Muslim clothes. We demand a stop to this policy. Otherwise, terrorist attacks will continue.”

This year’s deadly riots in Kyrgyzstan, in which mobs and members of the security forces attacked ethnic Uzbek districts, highlighted the government’s weakness and stoked fears of wider strife within the country and even between neighbouring states.

Analysts warn that a failed state in central Asia would be highly attractive to militants seeking a safe haven.

Such a scenario would be damaging for China and Russia, which have security and energy interests in the region, and the United States, which also covets central Asian gas and uses military bases there to get troops and supplies into Afghanistan.