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October 16, 2006

Tajikistan: Ten Muslim Terror Attacks Averted This Year

Tajikistan in Central Asia is a former Soviet republic, and gained independence in 1991. 90% of its population is Muslim, and its constitution is secular. On October 19 last year, the Muslim headscarf or "hijab" was banned from its schools.

Today, according to Interfax-Religion and Ferghana.ru, Tajlkistan's deputy interior minister, Abdurahim Kakharov, made an announcement this morning. He said: "For some time we have seen an intensification of operations by Hizb ut-Tahrir and IMU in Tajikistan but we don't link that in any way with the coming presidential elections in November."

Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group founded in 1953 in Jerusalem by an Islamic jurist, aims to create a Caliphate, a pan-national Islamic body. The last Caliphate was that of the Ottomans in Turkey, which was dissolved by Kemal Ataturk in March, 1924. It despises democracy, and is banned in most Middle Eastern nations. It is banned in Germany and the Netherlands, and was banned in Russia as a terrorist organization in February 2003. At least 29 Hizb ut-Tahrir activists are in prison in Russia, serving lengthy sentences on terrorist charges. It was banned this year in Pakistan.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is also banned in nations where Soviet influence used to be held, such as Tajikistan, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In 2004, 70 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir were arrested in Tajikistan.

September 13, Yuldosh announced that his group would kill politicians in Central Asian states.

IMU has an estimated 700 members. It was founded in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1998. In February 1999 it carried out a series of five car bombings in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. The group gained permission from the Taliban in May 1999 to have their base in Afghanistan. Juma Namangani, another leader of IMU, operated 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. Namangani has recently been killed, according to Tahir Yuldosh.

On July 18 this year, 10 suspected members of IMU were arrested in Tajikistan, with three of them Uzbek nationals who were wanted for terrorist attacks carried out in Tashkent.

In August we reported that in Kyrgyzstan, Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan were operating together, and becoming involved in terrorist incidents in that country.

Today, the deputy interior minister of Tajikistan said: "Hizb ut-Tahrir is not giving up its objective - the formation of an Islamic Caliphate in Central Asia through overthrowing the constitutional regimes in these countries."

He continued: "We have detained several members of IMU who also belonged to Hizb ut-Tahrir," head of the Department for Resisting Organized Crime Mahmadsaid Jurakulov told the news conference. The movements have similar goals and the propaganda efforts of one [Hizb ut-Tahrir] are backed by the military support and arms of the other [IMU]."

In the first nine months of 2006, the Tajikistan interior ministry has detained 48 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and seized two computers, one printer, 404 books, 908 pamphlets and more than 1,500 extremist leaflets.

Last year in Britain, prime minister Tony Blair said that he wanted to outlaw Hizb ut-Tahrir. This has still not happened. As well as threatening women in universities to force them to wear the hijab, or headscarf, Hizb ut-Tahrir is also involved in using paintball sessions to train its recruits. It is banned in UK Universities, but has crept in to many campuses, using an alternative name, Stop Islamophobia.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 16, 2006 7:48 AM

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