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July 18, 2006

Tajikistan: Ten Suspected Members Of Islamic Terror Group Detained

News from Interfax-Religion reports that ten suspected members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) have been detained in northern Tajikistan. According to a statement by Khomiddin Sharipov, the Tajik Interior Minister, the men were seized in northern Tajikistan.

He said: "An effort to detain members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was completed in the city of Khujand [near the border with Uzbekistan] on July 14-15. Ten members of the terrorist organization, three of them Uzbek nationals, were detained."

"As far as we know the movement members who are being detained in Tajikistan are trained in Afghanistan and sent to Uzbekistan where they cross the border to Tajiksitan, often illegally," he said, adding: "The detained Uzbek nationals are wanted in their country for attempting or committing terrorist acts."

The IMU is on he US State Department's list of specially designated terrorist organisations. More information can be found via NPS Navy, FAS, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, MIPT and the Center for Defense Information.

In brief, the group was originally set up in 1998, with the intention of forming an Islamist state in Uzbekistan. It is led by Tahir Yuldosh, who gained permission in May 1999 from Afghanistan's Taliban to establish a base in the north of that country, where he is still thought to reside. Juma Namangani is similarly thought to operate from the north Afghanistan base, training militants. He is also thought to have been made a "deputy" of Osama bin Laden in 2001. The two leaders were sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Uzbekistan for bombings caried out in Tashkent in February 1999. There are probably less than 700 active members.

The US State Department notes: "The IMU in recent years has participated in attacks on US and Coalition soldiers in Afghanistan and plotted attacks on US diplomatic facilities in Central Asia. In May 2003, Kyrgyzstani security forces disrupted an IMU cell that was seeking to bomb the US Embassy and a nearby hotel in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The IMU primarily targeted Uzbekistani interests before October 2001 and is believed to have been responsible for five car bombs in Tashkent in February 1999. Militants also took foreigners hostage in 1999 and 2000, including four US citizens who were mountain climbing in August 2000 and four Japanese geologists and eight Kyrgyzstani soldiers in August 1999."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 18, 2006 2:47 AM

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