The secular regime of Uzbekistan, long besieged by Islamist extremists from within and without, seems to have found a new ally: the United States.
In its rush to topple Afghanistan’s Taliban militia, which Washington accuses of sheltering accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, the US has reportedly begun moving troops into the resource-rich and populous Central Asian nation.
US forces are already stationed in the former Soviet satellite state, according to AFP, which this week quoted Afghanistan’s opposition Northern Alliance as saying that clashes had flared in three provinces across the Taliban-held north of the country, near the borders with Uzbekistan.
The US presence could serve as a warning to Uzbekistan’s restive Islamists, who last August tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the government. Fundamentalist Uzbek exiles demanded the introduction of strict Sharia (Islamic law) in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley, which extends into Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
In the past, the Uzbeks have accused the Taliban militia of boosting the insurgents, who it blames for both the August attacks and a damaging bombing campaign.
Before this month’s terrorist assault on the US, Uzbek President Islam Karimov, faced with an enduring insurrection in a country where Soviet-style socialism failed to eradicate Islam, turned to former Russian overlords and China for help.
Karimov announced in May that Uzbekistan had decided to join the Shanghai Five, which groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in an apparent effort to bolster its rule.
"The (Shanghai Five) group regards the resolution of regional security problems as of paramount importance and it is not possible to decide these issues without Uzbekistan, the key state in the region," Karimov told AFP at the time.
Since the August attacks, human rights groups have accused the government of cracking down on Islamists with brutal force. The defendants in a trial of 23 alleged anti-government conspirators maintain that state security forces planted Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) and other unsanctioned religious literature in their homes, and extracted confessions through torture.
According to a recent online report by the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, local state committees have been monitoring the prayers and movements of suspected Islamists.
In addition, according to the Moscow-based human rights group, Memorial, the number of Islamists arrested between January 1999 and April 2000 range between 4,000 and 5,000, while a senior United States diplomatic source in Tashkent told Egypt’s Al Ahram Weekly that on average some 100 people were arbitrarily incarcerated each month.
One local human rights activist told the Analyst that the government moves had instigated “witch hunt fears in the society to the extent that people are not only afraid to express their religious beliefs in public or wear religious dress, but even to pray at their own homes, as their private religious practices are closely followed by the local…committees.”
In this context, the latest moves of the US to extend its reach to Uzbekistan may please the government from two perspectives.
First, there is the possible support the US presence could bring for its secular and anti-Islamist campaign.
Second, there is the geopolitical weight that increased US engagement in Uzbek affairs might add, since the government’s earlier efforts to close ranks with China and Russia were made under duress. According to AFP, Uzbekistan previously rejected Moscow's attempts to reassert its Soviet-era power in the region and pulled out of a Russian-led security pact in 1999.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the US troop presence will spark a backlash similar to the pro-Taliban demonstrations taking place in Pakistan. In that case, the newly close ties between Washington and Tashkent might snap back to their former distance.
But with the Bush administration recruiting for the global “war on terrorism,” the time looks more ripe than ever for a US-Uzbek alliance targeting Islamist insurgents.
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
