EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - IMU Reportedly Expands, Prepares to Strike Western Targets

EURASIA INSIGHT

IMU REPORTEDLY EXPANDS, PREPARES TO STRIKE WESTERN TARGETS
Ibragim Alibekov 10/29/02

Far from withering in the face of the US-led anti-terrorism campaign, militants belonging to the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are now working to reestablish and expand their insurgent networks. According to Central Asia observers and officials, the IMU may be planning to mount fresh attacks on regional and Western interests.

Some reports in Central Asia say the IMU has merged with other regional radical Muslim groups and with Chinese Uighur separatists to form the Islamic Movement of Central Asia (IMCA). Krygyz National Security Service chief Kalyk Imankulov alleged in September that this new confederacy of radical movements operates at present mainly in mountainous areas of northern Afghanistan. In early October, Uzbek media reported that the new group had taken up the IMU’s goal of replacing secular governments in the region with an Islamic caliphate.

Imankulov’s assertion contradicts claims that the American-led offensive in Afghanistan had effectively destroyed the IMU and resulted in the death of the movement’s military leader, Juma Namangani.

Reports on the formation of the IMCA have so far attracted little public attention, says analyst Arabella Phillimore, who tracks security issues for the Lehman Brothers/Eurasia Group consultancy. She suggests the new movement’s ambitions � including the aim to foment a "people’s rebellion" in the spring of 2003 � seem to exceed its capabilities. But a broadened Central Asian Islamist movement, especially given the IMU’s ties to al Qaeda, nevertheless creates new security concerns for Central Asian leaders, including Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

Experts expect this broadened group to attempt small-scale attacks on Western interests within the next twelve months. According to Phillimore, the IMU may broaden its scope of activity in order to enjoy better chances of success. "My honest feeling is that Karimov is so effective at clamping down and so indifferent to the international community’s human rights concerns that the chances for the IMU to really do something on the ground in Uzbekistan are limited," she says.

The group would register heavier impact, she says, by supporting strikes in Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, both of which lack the capabilities that Uzbek authorities possess to crack down on anti-government activity. These attacks may involve "small bombs" and aim at Western as well as government interests, Phillimore says. She expects "a series of sabotage incidents targeting domestic and international military bases" in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan "in the immediate future."

While Phillimore says her Uzbek sources do not report much visible change in the pace or volume of IMU recruiting, many experts say that the presence (and sometimes the behavior) of American soldiers in the region has failed to improve local citizens’ lives and may lead some Uzbeks and Kyrgyz to take more radical stands. Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and expert on extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, suspects the IMU or its successor will target foreign personnel in Central Asian countries in order to "show the regimes to be vulnerable and unable to protect foreigners." Even the avowedly nonviolent Hizb-ut-Tahrir has seen some members in Kyrgyzstan begin "to sympathize with the IMU and its military struggle in particular," according to a Kyrgyz political scientist who has spent time in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Sources say that the IMU’s political leader, Takhir Yuldashev, will head the Islamic Movement of Central Asia. According to an American intelligence firm called Stratfor, though, the new organization has ambitious military plans. In an October 3 report, Stratfor warned that the new group may try to head anti-governmental meetings in South Kyrgyzstan by January and conduct armored swoops covering several countries at once in the spring of 2003.

The question of international coordination raises questions about how firmly and extensively al Qaeda, Osama bgin Laden’s global terrorist network, can support the IMCA’s work. One expert affiliated with the government security council of a Central Asian republic reasons that al Qaeda would enthusiastically support strikes in a poor Central Asian nation.

"Fighters of al Qaeda are able to organize terrorist acts against American people in Central Asia," the expert claims. "Al Qaeda has actually regrouped its forces, including the IMU."

But it is not clear how a battered IMU or a fledgling Islamic Movement of Central Asia could coordinate with al Qaeda, whose leaders are reportedly on the run. Some experts suspect that the new organization will define its own agenda without formal clearance from al Qaeda chiefs. Still, some collaboration is probably going on, says Phillimore: as al Qaeda seeks fresh targets and Yuldashev- who has eluded capture in Afghanistan � seeks new allies, Phillimore suspects some "cooperative momentum" between the new group and al Qaeda.

Moreover, Rashid says, Islamic parties in Pakistan that will lead the government of the Northwest Frontier, which borders Afghanistan, have historic ties to the IMU. "These could sustain the IMU in the future," he says. According to one expert, IMU operatives escaped Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 by flying to Pakistan, where they are currently "regrouping." If this report is right, Pakistan may be on the list of American allies that IMU leaders intend to attack in coming months.

Editor�s Note: Ibragim Alibekov, a pseudonym for a Central Asia-based analyst of regional political affairs, provided information for this report.

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