Terrorism - The Times Of Central Asia

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Security Terrorism

Authorities in Central Asia Warn Against Terrorist Recruitment

Uzbekistan's Interior Ministry has issued a warning over increased instances of calls to commit terrorist acts spread via social media and messenger apps. Citizens are being implored to booby-trap public places - including shopping and entertainment centers, schools and other places of mass gathering - for large sums of money. Besides the promise of money, extremists are offering to provide weapons and send a plan of action - while the provocateurs often won't take no for an answer. The anonymous instigators - as a rule, there is no photo or number in the profile - often write with similar appeals to children and teenagers, intimidating them with fabricated stories such as having all of that person's data and personal information. "In case you receive this kind of message, please do not panic and do not send them to public chat rooms, to your acquaintances and friends, but immediately report it to the internal affairs authorities on the number 102. Block the senders and do not enter into correspondence or conversations with them," the Interior Ministry said in a statement. "There is a Cybersecurity Center within the structure of the interior agencies, which is engaged in monitoring and identifying individuals and channels spreading calls for unlawful acts. Special divisions have been created within the operational and investigative department of the internal affairs bodies, which are also engaged in activities to identify terrorist threats on the World Wide Web and punish attackers," Shokirjon Hashimov, spokesman for the operational and investigative department of the Uzbek Interior Ministry, told The Times of Central Asia. The Uzbekistan TV channel reported on the detention of a group of extremist students, who were plotting terrorist attacks in several locations in Tashkent. The attackers, who were planning to carry out a terrorist attack in the spring of 2022, were discovered in February 2021. The young men carefully thought out a plan of action and chose the Israeli embassy in Tashkent or the murder of U.S. and Chinese citizens at the capital's international airport as the target of their planned attacks. After committing the terrorist acts, the boys intended to move to Syria via Turkey, or to Afghanistan via Surkhandarya. Over the course of the investigation, explosives were found at the suspects' homes. The court sentenced them to between 10 and 15 years in prison. Calls for vigilance can also be heard in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, where through social networks and dating sites, attackers are trying to recruit young people to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia. "The representative office of the Ministry of Labor, Social Security and Migration of Kyrgyzstan in the Russian Federation warns that through social networks and popular messengers such as Telegram, there is active recruitment of citizens, including underage children, to participate in terrorist acts in Russia," the press service of the ministry reported.

Terrorism

Islamic State Attack in Turkey Foiled; Tajik, Kyrgyz Citizens Arrested

Turkish law enforcement agencies have arrested two individuals, a Tajik citizen named as Faziljon A. and a Kyrgyz national identified as Zulfiya S., on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Turkey on behalf of Islamic State (IS). Their arrest was reported by the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet. The man and woman were caught during a raid on a house in Istanbul where IS members were hiding. The search of the property uncovered police uniforms and vests, emergency vehicle lights, police hats, car radios, knives and gun holsters - as well as some clothes that the suspects may have planned to wear for their escape. According to Hurriyet, officials determined that the Central Asian nationals planned to carry out the attack within Turkey. Faziljon A., from Tajikistan with the code name Abu Ismail, was named as the organizer of the attack. Istanbul's Anti-Terrorism Department is investigating whether the arrested suspects have connections with any other people in Turkey. Both were interrogated before being taken to court. Faziljon A., a known member of Islamic State in Tajikistan, has been detained by the court; his associate, Zulfiya S., originally from Kyrgyzstan, was deported. Between March 27 and March 31, Turkish forces detained 51 IS suspects.

Moscow Attack Terrorism

Man with Kyrgyzstan Links Among Suspects in Moscow Attack

A man originally from Kyrgyzstan is among the suspects detained in the attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed about 140 people, according to media reports. The man, identified as Alisher Kasimov, allegedly rented an apartment to men who carried out the attack on the Crocus City complex on Friday night. He appeared in court on Tuesday and did not show signs of having been beaten or tortured, as was the case with some other suspects. Videos circulating on social media showed a distraught woman purported to be Kasimov’s mother. In the videos, the woman says Kasimov is innocent and that he did not know that he was renting an apartment to people who were plotting an attack. Kasimov denounced his Kyrgyz citizenship in favor of Russian nationality in 2014. Several migrant laborers from Tajikistan were charged with terrorism Sunday night for their alleged role in the devastating assault with rifles and explosives. The attack has focused attention on the large number of Central Asian migrants living – often in grim conditions – in Russia, as well as the possible vulnerability of some of them to recruitment by extremist groups. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Crocus City killings. Russia has tried to assign blame to Ukraine and the West, without offering evidence.

Migration Security Terrorism Russia Kyrgyzstan Central Asia

Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry Urges Its Citizens to Temporarily Refrain From Traveling to Russia

A recommendation posted on the Kyrgyzstan Foreign Ministry website has urged its citizens to temporarily refrain From traveling to Russia in relation to the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall near Moscow on March 22, 2024, which killed over 130 people, as well as the introduction of enhanced security measures throughout Russia. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked fellow citizens who do not have good reasons and urgent business in Russia to refrain from traveling to Russia as long as the additional security measures and increased control of passage across the border are still in place. For those who have already planned their trip, the foreign ministry recommends checking for restrictions under their name on the website of the Russian Interior Ministry. "Citizens who have [committed] two or more administrative offenses during their previous stay on the territory of the Russian Federation, refrain from traveling to its territory to avoid not passing through the state border and the consequences associated with this procedure," reads a warning on the website of the Foreign Ministry. Furthermore, Kyrgyz diplomats recommend that citizens who are already in Russia refrain from visiting mass gatherings of any kind, as well as carry identification documents and the documents that confirm the legality of their stay in the Russian Federation. The Foreign Ministry warned that citizens should comply with the legal requirements of Russian security forces as part of their mandate to ensure public safety. "In case of emergency questions, citizens should contact the hotline of the Embassy of the Kyrgyz Republic in Moscow at +7 925 115 50 47, as well as the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic at +996 999 312 002," reads the statement. Russian authorities have stepped up security measures in many cities after the terrorist attack in the Moscow region that killed 139 people and injured 182 others, according to the latest figures. Tajik passports were found on the suspected perpetrators of the mass shooting, making Russian citizens and law enforcement more suspicious of Tajikistani nationals and citizens of neighboring Central Asian countries. After the terrorist attack, checks on citizens of all Central Asian countries in Russia have intensified. There is also talk of strengthening migration control in Russia.

Rule of law Migration Terrorism Tajikistan Russia

Tajik Migrants Facing Xenophobia in Russia After Moscow Terrorist Attack

After the detention of four Tajik nationals suspected of committing the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, migrants have faced a wave of hatred and aggression. In Blagoveshchensk, along the Amur River that borders China, unknown persons set fire to a market pavilion belonging to migrants. According to the city's mayor, Oleg Imameyev, the arson was committed "obviously on ethnic grounds." In Kaluga, a group of unidentified men beat up three Tajik citizens on the street, with one of them requiring hospitalization. In some regions of Russia, taxi passengers are refusing to use transportation services if they learn the driver is Tajik. Telegram channel, Baza, reports that after the terrorist attack special units were created among domestic law enforcement to conduct additional checks on foreign citizens. Together with traffic police officers, they will check hostels, hostels, businesses and road routes, as well as other places where migrants congregate. Even those Tajiks who have been living in Russia for many years with their families, some whom have Russian citizenship, have felt an increase in xenophobic sentiment. After it became known that one of the detainees, 19-year-old Muhammadsoobir Faizov, had worked for several months in the Ploschadka barbershop in the town of Teykovo, Ivanovo region, local residents started to threaten the salon's manager and hairdressers. The director of the barbershop, Yamina Safieva, told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that the salon employees' phones "do not stop ringing" with menacing phone calls and messages. Leaders among the Tajik diaspora have recommended that their fellow citizens do not go out on the streets unless necessary and do not to attend mass events. Kyrgyz citizens in Russia have also received similar from their diaspora leaders and government representatives. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan released a statement saying that three citizens of Tajikistan who were named by Russian media were not involved in the terrorist attack: one of them was in Samara at the time of the attack, where he works as a cab driver, and two of them have been living in their home country since November last year. According to various sources, there are about 1.5 million migrant workers from Tajikistan in Russia. As one of the remittance-based countries in the world, in 2021 Tajikistan was also the poorest country in post-Soviet space in terms of GDP per capita, which according to the World Bank was at $878 annually. In Kyrgyzstan, by way of comparison, at that time this indicator was $1,328. At the same time, Tajikistan has a high rate of population growth at 2.7%. Given rampant unemployment in the country - 7.8% in 2023, labor migration is an most important means of livelihood for Tajik citizens.

Kyrgyzstan Central Asia Terrorism Rule of law

Assassination Plan by Criminal Group on Kyrgyz Leaders

The State Committee for National Security of Kyrgyzstan (CNSK) has reported that members of a transnational organized criminal group, on the instruction of former Kyrgyz oligarch Rayimbek Matraimov, were preparing an assassination attempt on the country's top officials. The committee stated that the standard operating activities of Kyrgyz national-security organs led to the discovery of five citizens of Azerbaijan who under the leadership of a transnational organized criminal group, had arrived in Kyrgyzstan in order to strengthen their criminal enterprise and spread the group's ideology. However, according to the CNSK, the leader's main task was to organize an assassination attempt on the country's leadership in connection with the government's policy of fighting organised crime. Kyrgyz law enforcement claims that the leaders of the international criminal community are dissatisfied with the actions of the Kyrgyz authorities -- which force people involved in crime in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to abandon criminal plans. "In this regard, on March 22, employees of the CNSK carried out operational and investigative measures, as a result of which all the above-mentioned persons were detained. Currently, investigative measures are being carried out to bring them to justice, according to the laws of Kyrgyzstan," the CNSK said. Law enforcement claims that the assassination attempt on the Kyrgyz leaders was organized by Raimbek Matraimov, former deputy head of Kyrgyz customs, and a known corrupt oligarch. After being placed on the wanted list, Matraimov fled to Azerbaijan, where he remains at present. The CNSK sent a letter to Baku requesting the extradition of Matraimov to Bishkek in the belief that the former official is related to the currently detained Azerbaijanis. After the change of power in October 2020, Matraimov was accused of corruption in the customs service. The court ordered the former official to pay 2 billion som ($22.3 million) in damages and restitution back to the state. Matraimov pleaded guilty and paid the fines and penalties, in both cash and in the form of property. But, as Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov later noted, Matraimov continued to engage in "dark deeds" and was also accused of holding hostages. "Now Matraimov has been put on a wanted list. All his property in Osh and throughout Kyrgyzstan will be confiscated. We will not leave him even one hundredth [of a hectare] of land. Even if he returns, he will no longer be the former 'Rayim-million' (the oligarch's nickname). From now on, if he wants to live normally and feed himself, he should take a trading [stall] at the market..." said Kamchibek Tashiev, head of the CNSK at a meeting with workers at one of the markets previously owned by Matraimov. Last year, when the authorities engaged in a high-profile struggle with the leaders of organized crime groups, many so-called 'thieves in law' began, one after another, to publicly renounce criminal activity and promised to live by the law. Conversely, some leaders of Kyrgyzstan's criminal underworld were arrested and had their assets seized. One criminal mastermind when searched, was found to...