AI
Sunday, May 15, 2005 6:50:13 PM
Looks like war with China has begun.
Background:
A big part of the Grand Game is to surround, contain and break apart Russia and China. You can imagine how thrilled they are. To this end Bush has established a Uighur Government-in-Exile.
China has already protested the establishment of a Uighur Government-in-Exile in Washington and Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that it will not tolerate any political interference from abroad, where pro-independence Uighur organizations exist. This means us. It would seem we are orchestrating a riot in the Xinjiang province of China. Kyrgyzstan is one of the countries that borders the Xinjiang region.
#msg-4098311
Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed Islamic extremists for the uprising in Andijan, the ex-Soviet republic's fourth-largest city. He claimed that people from Kyrgyzstan were among the organizers of the violence in the city, where protesters stormed a prison and occupied the local government offices before government forces put down the uprising.
#msg-6349335
The blame is being attributed to the Hizbut Tehrir.
In addition to influencing Afghanistan the anti-government propaganda of the HT might have had some contribution to the public uprising against the Akayev government in Kyrgyzstan. Hizbut Tehir began activism in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
#msg-6332510
The Hizbut Tehir is stirring up revolution all the way to and including Kyrgyzstan.
China's main concern with Kyrgyzstan centers on China's own large and restive Muslim Turkic Uighur minority, which lives primarily in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. That province makes up one-sixth of China's territory and borders on seven countries, including Kyrgyzstan, where the frontier is largely mountainous.
#msg-5871359
Here’s the punch line. The Hizbut Tehir has supposedly aligned with the Uighurs.
China is being directly threatened by these uprisings. Make no mistake China will treat any attempt to break away the Xinjiang region in the same manner as Taiwan. This is a threat against China’s sovereignity.
While Bush obviously backs the Uighurs, given that the HT has become a real threat to the stability of the entire region in this instance he is also probably looking on in horror. He apparently has no control over the HT whereas he did have influence over certain Uighurs.
About 1 million Chinese troops are stationed in Xinjiang.
#msg-5871359
In addition to the 1 million troops China is considering adding strengthen 2.5 million semi-military in Xinjiang.
#msg-4248304
There is little hard and fast information as to the extent of organized opposition to Chinese rule within Xinjiang, but Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that it will not tolerate any political interference from abroad, where pro-independence Uighur organizations exist. Uighur separatists accuse the ruling Chinese of political, religious, and cultural repression.
Beijing is as worried about "splittism" in Xinjiang as it is about "splittism" in neighboring Tibet or "separatism" in Taiwan. The closing of the border trading station at Irkeshtam -- where Uighurs live on both sides of the frontier -- at peak trading season is probably intended as a warning to the Uighurs and the new authorities in Kyrgyzstan that Beijing will protect its interests. The politically motivated opening or closing of trading stations is a centuries-old tool of Chinese diplomacy.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/3/50BB93C4-E5D0-4009-A01D-4646E5ADD5D7.html
Imankulov said he has obtained information indicating that members of different radical groups may be attempting to join forces in a single organization. He said groups like the IMU, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Uighur separatists, and Tajik and Kyrgyz Islamists are uniting, calling themselves the Islamic Movement of Central Asia. Under the guidance of the IMU, he said, the new group’s aim is to create an Islamic caliphate that will begin in Uzbekistan before expanding to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and moving on to the rest of Central Asia and northwest China.
-Am
CENTRAL ASIA: ARE RADICAL GROUPS JOINING FORCES?
Zamira Eshanova: 10/11/02
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
Despite U.S. military achievements in the war on Afghan-based terrorism, the threat of terrorist developments in Central Asia remains.
Regional governments say the physical presence of thousands of U.S. troops in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have forced radical groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, to keep a low profile for the time being. But they do not believe the activities of such groups have been stopped entirely.
One official expressing such concern is Kalyk Imankulov, the head of the Kyrgyz National Security Service.
Imankulov said he has obtained information indicating that members of different radical groups may be attempting to join forces in a single organization. He said groups like the IMU, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Uighur separatists, and Tajik and Kyrgyz Islamists are uniting, calling themselves the Islamic Movement of Central Asia. Under the guidance of the IMU, he said, the new group’s aim is to create an Islamic caliphate that will begin in Uzbekistan before expanding to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and moving on to the rest of Central Asia and northwest China.
Imankulov and other state officials declined to comment on the issue to RFE/RL. But the statement has triggered a debate among regional experts on whether the creation of such a union is really feasible.
Ahmed Rashid is the Pakistan-based author of "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" and other books on Islamic fundamentalism in the region. He said the unification of various radical Islamic groups of Central Asia in one regional organization is not likely under current circumstances. "Frankly, I think it is very difficult for all these various groups to be able to unite in a situation where all the borders are very tightly patrolled. There is an American military and intelligence presence in Central Asia and in Afghanistan. And of course, Russian intelligence is also very, very active," Rashid said.
Rashid said the idea of gathering militants scattered by the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan is already difficult. To then expect them to unite in a single, ideologically consistent organization, he said, is even more unlikely. He cited as an example the banned Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which supports the creation of a caliphate but without the violent means often advocated by groups like the IMU. "Hizb ut-Tahrir has denounced terrorism and violence, and they have said that they would bring about a change for an Islamic regime [a caliphate] through peaceful means, [a strategy that is radically different from the IMU agenda]," Rashid said.
Rashid said that lumping Hizb ut-Tahrir and the IMU together in the same category of radical groups -- as Imankulov did in his recent remarks -- may be an indication that Kyrgyz officials are not aware of the real developments within the various Islamic groups of Central Asia.
Rashid said Imankulov’s remarks may instead be an excuse for the state to further crack down on unsanctioned Islamic groups that it says represent a security threat. He said exaggerating the terrorist threat in Central Asia may help regional leaders coax greater political and financial support from the United States.
Abduljelil Karkash is president of the East Turkistan Information Center based in Munich. He agrees that Imankulov’s statement may be aimed at heightening anxiety over the terrorist threat in Central Asia. He said the goals of the various groups mentioned by the Kyrgyz official are too disparate to be served by a single organization.
Karkash said the goal of Uighur separatists from China’s Xinjiang Province is to achieve independence from Beijing, something that has little in common with the IMU’s agenda, or Hizb ut-Tahrir’s aim of building a caliphate in Central Asia. "How can these different groups unite [in a single organization]? The [IMU] -- a bunch of people who can’t pray or read the Koran in their own country -- is not capable of building an Islamic state and has no power to unite other nations [under this slogan]," Karkash said.
Karkash added that the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (formerly the Eastern Turkistan Liberation Movement) -- a Uighur separatist group recently added to the U.S. State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations -- is not seeking to build an Islamic state in Central Asia but to liberate Uighurs from Chinese control.
Karkash said unification with the IMU, a group closely linked to Al-Qaeda, would do considerable damage to the Uighur independence movement and play into the hands of the Chinese government, which has been trying to link the separatist movement to international terrorism.
While questioning the legitimacy of the Kyrgyz security official’s claim, both Rashid and Karkash agreed that some new developments are under way within various Islamic groups of Central Asia.
Rashid said that scattered militants from the IMU and other regional radical groups may soon unite under a new leader, but possibly not Tahir Yuldash, the IMU’s current political leader. "I think that the bigger danger is that some of the elements of the IMU may try to link up with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the radical Afghan-Pashtun leader who has now returned to Afghanistan and who is opposing the government of President Hamid Karzai. I think that these scattered IMU groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan may be more likely to link up with Hekmatyar at the moment rather than try to make some very grand Islamic alliance across Central Asia," Rashid said.
Rashid believes that regardless of which figure, Tahir Yuldash or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, might unite the scattered IMU militants, at the moment the group is not capable of carrying out a major military action in any of the Central Asian countries like those in 1999 and 2000. Rashid said that instead of a wide-scale military invasion, the IMU may try to hit Western, in particular, U.S., interests in Central Asia. "I think the danger that the IMU may attack or try to attack American forces in Central Asia is something very likely. I don’t think that the IMU has such large numbers of forces as they had in the past. And I think that we are not going to see any major kind of military action," Rashid said.
The possibility of military action by the IMU against U.S. targets has been raised repeatedly by Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tajik officials in talks with U.S. authorities. Fighting terrorism remains a key official concern among the region’s leaders and was a top issue of discussion during this weekend’s summit of Central Asian leaders in Dushanbe.
Posted October 11, 2002 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav101102.shtml
Background:
A big part of the Grand Game is to surround, contain and break apart Russia and China. You can imagine how thrilled they are. To this end Bush has established a Uighur Government-in-Exile.
China has already protested the establishment of a Uighur Government-in-Exile in Washington and Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that it will not tolerate any political interference from abroad, where pro-independence Uighur organizations exist. This means us. It would seem we are orchestrating a riot in the Xinjiang province of China. Kyrgyzstan is one of the countries that borders the Xinjiang region.
#msg-4098311
Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed Islamic extremists for the uprising in Andijan, the ex-Soviet republic's fourth-largest city. He claimed that people from Kyrgyzstan were among the organizers of the violence in the city, where protesters stormed a prison and occupied the local government offices before government forces put down the uprising.
#msg-6349335
The blame is being attributed to the Hizbut Tehrir.
In addition to influencing Afghanistan the anti-government propaganda of the HT might have had some contribution to the public uprising against the Akayev government in Kyrgyzstan. Hizbut Tehir began activism in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
#msg-6332510
The Hizbut Tehir is stirring up revolution all the way to and including Kyrgyzstan.
China's main concern with Kyrgyzstan centers on China's own large and restive Muslim Turkic Uighur minority, which lives primarily in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. That province makes up one-sixth of China's territory and borders on seven countries, including Kyrgyzstan, where the frontier is largely mountainous.
#msg-5871359
Here’s the punch line. The Hizbut Tehir has supposedly aligned with the Uighurs.
China is being directly threatened by these uprisings. Make no mistake China will treat any attempt to break away the Xinjiang region in the same manner as Taiwan. This is a threat against China’s sovereignity.
While Bush obviously backs the Uighurs, given that the HT has become a real threat to the stability of the entire region in this instance he is also probably looking on in horror. He apparently has no control over the HT whereas he did have influence over certain Uighurs.
About 1 million Chinese troops are stationed in Xinjiang.
#msg-5871359
In addition to the 1 million troops China is considering adding strengthen 2.5 million semi-military in Xinjiang.
#msg-4248304
There is little hard and fast information as to the extent of organized opposition to Chinese rule within Xinjiang, but Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that it will not tolerate any political interference from abroad, where pro-independence Uighur organizations exist. Uighur separatists accuse the ruling Chinese of political, religious, and cultural repression.
Beijing is as worried about "splittism" in Xinjiang as it is about "splittism" in neighboring Tibet or "separatism" in Taiwan. The closing of the border trading station at Irkeshtam -- where Uighurs live on both sides of the frontier -- at peak trading season is probably intended as a warning to the Uighurs and the new authorities in Kyrgyzstan that Beijing will protect its interests. The politically motivated opening or closing of trading stations is a centuries-old tool of Chinese diplomacy.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/3/50BB93C4-E5D0-4009-A01D-4646E5ADD5D7.html
Imankulov said he has obtained information indicating that members of different radical groups may be attempting to join forces in a single organization. He said groups like the IMU, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Uighur separatists, and Tajik and Kyrgyz Islamists are uniting, calling themselves the Islamic Movement of Central Asia. Under the guidance of the IMU, he said, the new group’s aim is to create an Islamic caliphate that will begin in Uzbekistan before expanding to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and moving on to the rest of Central Asia and northwest China.
-Am
CENTRAL ASIA: ARE RADICAL GROUPS JOINING FORCES?
Zamira Eshanova: 10/11/02
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL
Despite U.S. military achievements in the war on Afghan-based terrorism, the threat of terrorist developments in Central Asia remains.
Regional governments say the physical presence of thousands of U.S. troops in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have forced radical groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, to keep a low profile for the time being. But they do not believe the activities of such groups have been stopped entirely.
One official expressing such concern is Kalyk Imankulov, the head of the Kyrgyz National Security Service.
Imankulov said he has obtained information indicating that members of different radical groups may be attempting to join forces in a single organization. He said groups like the IMU, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Uighur separatists, and Tajik and Kyrgyz Islamists are uniting, calling themselves the Islamic Movement of Central Asia. Under the guidance of the IMU, he said, the new group’s aim is to create an Islamic caliphate that will begin in Uzbekistan before expanding to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and moving on to the rest of Central Asia and northwest China.
Imankulov and other state officials declined to comment on the issue to RFE/RL. But the statement has triggered a debate among regional experts on whether the creation of such a union is really feasible.
Ahmed Rashid is the Pakistan-based author of "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" and other books on Islamic fundamentalism in the region. He said the unification of various radical Islamic groups of Central Asia in one regional organization is not likely under current circumstances. "Frankly, I think it is very difficult for all these various groups to be able to unite in a situation where all the borders are very tightly patrolled. There is an American military and intelligence presence in Central Asia and in Afghanistan. And of course, Russian intelligence is also very, very active," Rashid said.
Rashid said the idea of gathering militants scattered by the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan is already difficult. To then expect them to unite in a single, ideologically consistent organization, he said, is even more unlikely. He cited as an example the banned Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which supports the creation of a caliphate but without the violent means often advocated by groups like the IMU. "Hizb ut-Tahrir has denounced terrorism and violence, and they have said that they would bring about a change for an Islamic regime [a caliphate] through peaceful means, [a strategy that is radically different from the IMU agenda]," Rashid said.
Rashid said that lumping Hizb ut-Tahrir and the IMU together in the same category of radical groups -- as Imankulov did in his recent remarks -- may be an indication that Kyrgyz officials are not aware of the real developments within the various Islamic groups of Central Asia.
Rashid said Imankulov’s remarks may instead be an excuse for the state to further crack down on unsanctioned Islamic groups that it says represent a security threat. He said exaggerating the terrorist threat in Central Asia may help regional leaders coax greater political and financial support from the United States.
Abduljelil Karkash is president of the East Turkistan Information Center based in Munich. He agrees that Imankulov’s statement may be aimed at heightening anxiety over the terrorist threat in Central Asia. He said the goals of the various groups mentioned by the Kyrgyz official are too disparate to be served by a single organization.
Karkash said the goal of Uighur separatists from China’s Xinjiang Province is to achieve independence from Beijing, something that has little in common with the IMU’s agenda, or Hizb ut-Tahrir’s aim of building a caliphate in Central Asia. "How can these different groups unite [in a single organization]? The [IMU] -- a bunch of people who can’t pray or read the Koran in their own country -- is not capable of building an Islamic state and has no power to unite other nations [under this slogan]," Karkash said.
Karkash added that the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (formerly the Eastern Turkistan Liberation Movement) -- a Uighur separatist group recently added to the U.S. State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations -- is not seeking to build an Islamic state in Central Asia but to liberate Uighurs from Chinese control.
Karkash said unification with the IMU, a group closely linked to Al-Qaeda, would do considerable damage to the Uighur independence movement and play into the hands of the Chinese government, which has been trying to link the separatist movement to international terrorism.
While questioning the legitimacy of the Kyrgyz security official’s claim, both Rashid and Karkash agreed that some new developments are under way within various Islamic groups of Central Asia.
Rashid said that scattered militants from the IMU and other regional radical groups may soon unite under a new leader, but possibly not Tahir Yuldash, the IMU’s current political leader. "I think that the bigger danger is that some of the elements of the IMU may try to link up with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the radical Afghan-Pashtun leader who has now returned to Afghanistan and who is opposing the government of President Hamid Karzai. I think that these scattered IMU groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan may be more likely to link up with Hekmatyar at the moment rather than try to make some very grand Islamic alliance across Central Asia," Rashid said.
Rashid believes that regardless of which figure, Tahir Yuldash or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, might unite the scattered IMU militants, at the moment the group is not capable of carrying out a major military action in any of the Central Asian countries like those in 1999 and 2000. Rashid said that instead of a wide-scale military invasion, the IMU may try to hit Western, in particular, U.S., interests in Central Asia. "I think the danger that the IMU may attack or try to attack American forces in Central Asia is something very likely. I don’t think that the IMU has such large numbers of forces as they had in the past. And I think that we are not going to see any major kind of military action," Rashid said.
The possibility of military action by the IMU against U.S. targets has been raised repeatedly by Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tajik officials in talks with U.S. authorities. Fighting terrorism remains a key official concern among the region’s leaders and was a top issue of discussion during this weekend’s summit of Central Asian leaders in Dushanbe.
Posted October 11, 2002 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav101102.shtml
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