Does their nationality have anything to do with their alleged terrorism? Many Russians probably think so.

Tajikistan, a landlocked country of 10 million sandwiched between Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and China, is the most impoverished of the former Soviet republics. Known for its corruption and political repression, it has chafed under the iron-fisted rule of President Emomali Rahmon since 1994.

There are estimated to be well over three million Tajiks living in Russia, about one-third of the total Tajik population. Most of them hold the precarious status of “guest workers,” holding low-paying jobs in construction, produce markets or even cleaning public toilets.

While Russia’s declining population has led to increasing reliance on foreign workers to fill such needs within its labour force, the attitude of Russians towards natives of Central Asia and the Caucasus region is generally negative.

It’s similar to the American stereotype about Mexicans so infamously expressed by Donald Trump in 2015: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

CBC News Video: “Why would ISIS-K attack Russia? | Front Burner

Non-Slavs are systematically discriminated against in Russia, and since 2022 they have been disproportionately conscripted and sent to Ukraine to serve as cannon fodder at the front.

Tajik exclusion

As I have described in a recent book, few nations in history have seen their standing so dramatically reduced as the Tajiks have over the past 100 years.

For more than a millennium, the Tajiks — Persian-speaking descendants of the ancient Sogdians who dominated the Silk Road — were Central Asia’s cultural elite.

Beginning with what’s known as the New Persian Renaissance of the 10th century when their capital, Bukhara, came to rival Baghdad as a centre of Islamic learning and high culture, Tajiks were the principal scholars and bureaucrats of Central Asia’s major cities right up to the time of the Russian Revolution.

The famous medieval polymath Avicenna was an ethnic Tajik, as were the hadith collector Bukhari, the Sufi poet Rumi, and many others.

But as the most significant purveyors of Central Asia’s Islamic civilization, Tajiks were seen by the Bolsheviks as representing an obsolete legacy that socialism aimed to overcome.

The Tajiks were virtually excluded from the massive social and political restructuring imposed on Central Asia during the early years of the Soviet Union, with most of their historical territory, including the fabled cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, being awarded to the Turkic-speaking Uzbeks who were seen as being more malleable.

Only as late as 1929 were the Tajiks given their own republic, consisting mostly of marginal, mountainous territory and deprived of any major urban centres.

Impoverished

Throughout the 20th century, the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic was the most impoverished and underdeveloped region of the former Soviet Union, and it has retained that unfortunate status since independence in 1991.

From 1992-1997, the country was plunged into a devastating civil war that destroyed what infrastructure remained from the Soviet period. Since that time, Rahmon has used the threat of renewed civil conflict to vindicate his absolute rule.

The spectre of radical Islam emanating from neighbouring Afghanistan — where the Tajik population considerably outnumbers that of Tajikistan — has provided additional justification for Rahmon’s repressive policies.

In today’s Tajikistan even those with a university education find it almost impossible to earn a salary that would enable them to build a normal family life.

Disempowered and humiliated by the system, they are easy prey for radical Islamic preachers who give them a sense of value and purpose.

The added backdrop of financial desperation makes for an explosive cocktail: one of the suspects in the recent Moscow attacks reportedly told his Russian interrogators that he was promised a cash reward of half a million Russian rubles (about US$5,300) to carry out his alleged atrocities..

Terrorism as desperation?

Normal, sane human beings everywhere are horrified by terrorist acts regardless of how they are justified by their perpetrators, and the long-suffering people of Tajikistan are no exception.

But unfortunately, the conditions under which a small number of extremists can perceive the psychopathic murder of innocent civilians for cash or ideology as an attractive option show no signs of abating.

Russia’s laughable attempt to somehow link the Moscow attacks to Ukraine is a clumsy diversion from the consequences of its relations with Central Asia.

Richard Foltz, Professor of Religions and Cultures, Concordia University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read this post in Malagasy

( GlobalVoices.org) – On May 8, 2022, the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan reported that they are investigating Islamic State (IS) rockets attack on Tajikistan from Afghanistan’s Takhar Province, as IS admitted firing eight rockets on May 7 towards “unspecified military targets in Tajikistan.” In reaction, Tajik officials cautiously mentioned bullets accidentally fired during a fight between Taliban forces and IS militants on the Afghan side of the border, yet maintained the operational readiness of its border troops. With rising tension in the region, one might conclude that the Taliban honeymoon is definitely over, as far as its Central Asian neighbors are concerned.

According to certain perceptions, the Taliban might consider Russia as being stuck in the war with Ukraine, making it the ideal moment to pressure Central Asian states into making political concessions. Tajikistan, a country that has blatantly disparaged the new Taliban government, could be a primary target. From the onset of the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the Tajik government, backed by a Russian military presence, refused to communicate with the Taliban. Dushanbe would not recognize the Taliban rule, as long as the new government continues to exclude ethnic Tajiks, who make up the quarter of the population of Afghanistan.

This pressure was in no way confined to the use of force, as verbal threats targeting its neighbors became commonplace in Afghan politics. Thus, on May 6, 2022, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former prime minister and the leader of the pro-Taliban Hezb-e Islami party, stated that Tajikistan virtually declared war on Afghanistan by providing shelter to Afghan opposition. Therefore, in retaliation, Afghanistan should provide refuge for Tajik opposition. He delivered his menacing speech in Dari, a language closely related to Tajik, following his meeting with Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting foreign minister of the Taliban, depicting Tajikistan as weak, small, and fragile (ضعیف، کوچک، شکننده).

It is no surprise that threats and attacks targeting Tajikistan occurred amid reports of clashes in the northeastern Panjshir province between the Taliban forces and the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, the ethnic Tajik-dominated anti-Taliban alliance that opened a representative office in Tajikistan in October 2021. Besides, Tajikistan was the third largest host of registered Afghan refugees (after Pakistan and Iran), and is the fourth largest destination for newly arrived Afghans since 2021 (after Pakistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan).

View of Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan. Photo by UN Photo/Homayon Khoram via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Earlier, on April 18, 2022, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), the affiliate of IS mainly active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, claimed that it launched a rocket assault on a military base in Uzbekistan near the city of Termez, but Uzbek officials immediately dismissed the claims in a manner similar to that of Tajikistan.

Already in January 2022, Taliban Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of Mullah Omar, founder of the Taliban, urged both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to return to Afghanistan the military aircraft taken there by the US-trained pilots of the Afghan Air Force, who fled to Central Asia alongside the withdrawal of US troops in August 2021, calling on to them not test their patience and not force them to take “all possible retaliatory steps.” In light of this, on January 10, 2022, at the conference of the Russia-led military alliance Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Tajik president Emomali Rahmon warned his fellow heads of states about more than 40 training camps for terrorists located in the northwestern Afghanistan, hosting more than 6,000 militants, adding that some in Central Asia share their views.

Russia’s unlikely rapprochement with the Taliban

Indeed, from the moment of the collapse of the Afghan government following the withdrawal of US and allied troops and the rapid Taliban takeover, the three Central Asian states that border Afghanistan — Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — intended to defend their borders through security reinforcement and diplomacy, primarily relying on Russian initiatives. Within that framework, during the consultation in Moscow on July 8, 2021, Russia even seemed to succeed in obtaining a pledge from the Taliban not to violate the borders of the Central Asian states. It ought to be noted, though, that at the same meeting the Taliban assured their readiness to respect human rights, including women’s rights, but over time went on harshening policies towards women, forcing them to cover their faces, restricting work and education. Later, the Afghan diplomats representing the Taliban government received accreditation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, while the Afghan embassy in Moscow was handed over to the Taliban.

Women at the election polls in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 20, 2009. Photo by UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

As for the security reinforcement in the region upon the Taliban takeover, Russia, having a large military base in Tajikistan and involved in equipping and training Tajik border troops for decades, initially saw no need to engage the CSTO forces in protecting the border with Afghanistan, highlighting the need for military equipment and technical assistance instead. Nevertheless, in August 2021, Russia held a joint military exercise with Tajik and Uzbek troops in the Kharbmaidon training ground in Tajikistan near the Afghan border, modernizing, in the meantime, the military equipment of their base. Later, in October 2021, the CSTO carried out military drills in Tajikistan, engaging troops from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.

Aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its brutish conduct of war, which is often compared to the Soviet failure in Afghanistan, made even the Taliban urge them to “desist from taking positions that could intensify violence,” shifting the strategic balance of power in the region away from Russia.

Not only would it release the Taliban from being the world’s most prominent aggressor and distract Western attention away from Afghanistan, but also it could eventually untie the Taliban from its security arrangements with Russia, which now has “no money or military force to spare” due to sanctions and military failure, and thus cannot play vital role in Taliban’s search for international recognition.

From the military perspective, Russia’s plans to rearm its military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan by the end of 2022, as well as Russia’s ambitious 2022–2024 strategic partnership program with Kazakhstan now all seem vague, as as early as a couple of weeks into the Ukraine war, Russia allegedly asked China for military and economic aid. Claims that Russia might pull some troops from its base in Armenia were made by Ukraine, while the withdrawal of troops and mercenaries from Syria and Libya to reinforce its Ukrainian campaign, opened the door to strategic opportunities for small and greater powers in the region.

Amidst these developments, the Central Asian states, whose economies started suffering even before the Russo–Ukrainian war, are now threatened with the rise of violence and instability inside Afghanistan, which activated military groups, including the ISKP that carried out attacks on Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Some of these groups extensively recruit ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks and carry out media and propaganda campaigns in Central Asian languages, proclaiming “great jihad to Central Asia.” Moreover, some even consider them as Taliban attacks executed through the local affiliate of the IS, as the latter has established links with the Haqqani network, the offshoot of the Taliban.

At the moment, while Russia’s military failures in Ukraine, and its economic and political isolation has left Central Asian states alone with their fears of rising Islamic militancy in Afghanistan, news of the hours-long exchange of fire between Taliban forces and Tajik border troops from May 15, 2022, started breaking the silence that lasted only for a week. On the other hand, Russian president Vladimir Putin seems to expropriate the CSTO summit that started in Moscow on May 16, 2022, to express his grievances about the “rage of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine,” encouraged by the West, and threaten Finland and Sweden for their intentions to join the NATO, rather than really dealing with the Afghan threat.

Zhar Zardykhan is the Greater Central Asia Editor from Almaty, Kazakhstan. He studied Eurasian politics and Islamic history, love languages, photography, and hiking.

Via GlobalVoices.org

According to the Taliban spokesman and Afghanistan’s Acting Deputy Information Minister Zabihullah Mujahid, the militant group has sent thousands of fighters to the Afghan province of Takhar, which borders Tajikistan, “to eliminate security threats and other potential threats” from the neighboring country. The Tajik authorities, on the other hand, claim that they “control the actions of extremist groups on the other side of the border.”

“As far as we know, thousands did not arrive, but even if ten people get together, we will perceive it as a threat and will act in accordance with reality”, the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quotes an anonymous Tajik border guard.

At the same time, the Taliban denies that its militants are plotting ways to infiltrate into Tajikistan, although Ghani Baradar, the acting first deputy prime minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, accused Dushanbe of interfering in Afghan affairs.

“For every action there is a reaction”, Baradar said in an interview with Al Jazeera TV channel.

Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon recently ordered the deployment of 20,000 additional troops on the border with Afghanistan, and Dushanbe conducted a nationwide military drill involving some 230,000 troops. The former Soviet republic is a member of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The Taliban, for its part, fears that Tajikistan – one of the few neighbors of Afghanistan that has openly stated that it does not intend to recognize the Taliban government – could use ethnic Tajiks living in the war-torn nation as an instrument against the new Afghan authorities. It is believed that theTajiks comprise about 40 percent of Afghanistan’s population, making them the largest group in the country after the Pashtuns. Rahmon has repeated on several occasions that an inclusive government should be formed in Afghanistan and Tajiks, along with other ethnic groups in the country, should take a worthy place in public administration.

“Tajikistan will not recognize any other government in Afghanistan formed through oppression and persecution, without taking into account the position of the entire Afghan people, all of its national minorities”, the Tajik President said, pointing out that an inclusive government with the participation of ethnic Tajiks must be formed as quickly as possible.

Rahmon, having ruled the Central Asian country for thirty years, is trying to act as the main protector of ethnic Tajiks. However, not all Afghan Tajiks, including those living in Panjshir — where the anti-Taliban opposition has found refuge — look to Tajikistan for support. Many of them have reportedly sided with the Taliban, and Dushanbe fears that the new Afghan rulers could use one of their proxies as a tool against Tajikistan. Presently, the biggest threat for the Tajik authorities is not the Taliban itself, but Jamaat Ansarullah – also known as Ansarullah or Ansorullo – which they often call the “Tajik Taliban.” The organization was founded in 2010 by Amriddin Tabarov, who had been a field commander for anti-government Islamist forces during Tajikistan’s 1992-1997 civil war. Ansarullah is believed to have links with other militant groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as with Al-Qaeda.

Some Russian analysts claim that the Ansorullah militants could carry out a terrorist attack in Tajikistan with the Taliban’s indirect support. The Afghan group, however, promised to prevent such actions, but Tajikistan does not seem to trust the Taliban, and has closed the border with Afghanistan. But is that a long-term solution?

“Someday it will be necessary to open the border. It is impossible to keep it closed all the time. Sooner or later the Tajik authorities will be forced to negotiate. It is probably just a matter of time”, said Temur Umarov, Research Consultant at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Tajikistan is the only CSTO member that borders Afghanistan. Some Russian experts claim that the country is “not capable to defend itself” against a potential Taliban incursion, and is heavily dependent on the Russian support. That is why Russia keeps arming Tajikistan, and is also strengthening its military base in the former Soviet republic. Tajik authorities openly say that they need Russian weapons to “neutralize the threat from the territory of neighboring Afghanistan”, and back in July the Kremlin promised to help Tajikistan in case the Taliban attacks Moscow’s ally. That, however, does not mean that Russia aims to invade Afghanistan. According to Vladimir Dzhabarov, the deputy head of Russia’s Upper House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Moscow can prevent a potential Taliban aggression on Tajikistan without deploying troops to the “graveyard of the empires”.

“I think the Taliban have studied in detail the ‘Syrian lessons’ and know the capabilities of Russia in terms of delivering pinpoint missile strikes”, Dzhabarov emphasized.

At this point, however, such a development of events does not seem very realistic, although the Kremlin is expected to continue to strengthen the military potential of Tajikistan. A potential but not very probable escalation in the region would almost certainly result in an increased Russian influence in Central Asia.

—–

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

RFE/RL: “Afghan Students In Tajikistan Face An Uncertain Future”