Some counterterrorism experts in the West are assessing whether the ouster of Bashar Assad´s regime in Syria will lead to a recalibration of the Islamic militant groups that opposed him, some of which include especially hardline recruits from Central Asia.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian group that led an offensive into Aleppo and Damascus and forced Assad to flee in a span of two weeks, is trying to turn to governance with a relatively moderate image even though it was associated with Al-Qaeda earlier in the Syrian civil war and is labeled a terrorist organization on some Western lists. It’s too early to say whether HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani will stick to a message of tolerance or can make it work in a fractured country with gutted institutions, but there are signs that some jihadis object to his message of inclusiveness.
“Many of them are Central Asians and they may look to go somewhere else. I think we’re inevitably going to see a certain amount of splintering from what happens in Syria,” said Colin Clarke, a terrorism researcher and author of After the Caliphate.
At an Atlantic Council event in Washington on Wednesday, Clarke said there is an “interplay” between religious extremism in Afghanistan and Syria, and that a number of groups with Central Asian members have those connections. Clarke said he will be watching to see whether the connections grow following Assad’s abrupt exit after more than two decades in power.
Some estimates put the number of Islamic militants who have traveled from Central Asia to Syria and Iraq over the years at around several thousand, though the figures vary and are difficult to confirm. Many joined the Islamic State group, which was defeated in Iraq and is much diminished in Syria although the U.S. recently carried out air strikes to prevent any resurgence by the group amid Syria’s current upheaval.
One jihadist group with Central Asia links that collaborated with HTS in the successful campaign against Assad is Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad, designated a terror group by the U.S. State Department in 2022. The group carried out a Saint Petersburg, Russia metro attack in 2017 that killed 14 passengers and injured 50 others, as well as a suicide car bombing of the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2016 that injured three people, according to the U.S.
Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad is comprised mainly of Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz combatants, according to Daniele Garofalo Monitoring, which traces jihadist propaganda and military activity. There are an estimated 400-500 fighters in the group.
Another HTS ally is Katibat Mujaheddin Ghuroba Division, which has between 200 and 400 fighters, according to the Garofalo site. Many are Uzbeks, Tajiks and Uyghurs, though the group also has Arab militants.
There is also Jaysh al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, which dates to the early stages of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011. The jihadist group is believed to have 400-500 fighters, mostly Chechens, Tajiks, Dagestanis, Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs and Ukrainians, as well as Libyans, Saudis and Turks.
These groups and others “have strong ties to HTS and the territory; many of their fighters are married to Syrian women and have children born in Syria,” according to the Garofalo report.
At the Atlantic Council event, Morgan Tadych, a terrorism researcher and U.S. military veteran, said socioeconomic issues in Tajikistan, including endemic poverty, a lack of education and restrictions on religious practice, make the country “uniquely vulnerable” to recruiting efforts by the Islamic State branch that is active in neighboring Afghanistan. She said extremists have had success in portraying terrorism as ´´a legitimate outlet to solve all these social ills that someone might be facing.”
Tadych, however, noted the benefits of a years-long security partnership between the Virginia National Guard and Tajikistan, and said the United States “already has a decent base to build off of as a way that we can maybe pursue further engagement to help stem the issues at the source,” thereby reducing the need to track online extremism and battle terror groups once they emerge.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack involving Tajik suspects that killed about 145 people on March 22 at the Crocus City entertainment venue on the outskirts of Moscow. In June, U.S. media reported the arrests of eight people from Tajikistan with possible ties to the terror group who had crossed the border with Mexico and made their way to several U.S. cities.
John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan, said Islam in Central Asia is historically tolerant and diverse and that religious extremism hasn’t won broad popular support in the region, partly because it only exists there “as an import.”
Still, Herbst said, the government in Tajikistan, and in Kyrgyzstan to a lesser extent, has limited effectiveness and “limited control of its territory,” and so “it’s not a surprise that we keep hearing” about Tajik militancy. Even so, he said, the United States has done some significant counterterrorism work with Tajikistan in the past couple of years, whilst Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan also remain interested in collaboration with Washington.
“Now, they all worry about their big neighbors, principally Russia and China, who don’t look kindly at us,” the former ambassador said. “But on terrorism, they’ve been willing to talk to us and work with us, literally for decades.”
