Analysis The Islamic State’s Central Asian Contingents and Their International Threat

[Kartal1]

Oct 16, 2023
Current Trends in Islamist Ideology

The Islamic State’s Central Asian Contingents and Their International Threat​

Lucas Webber & Riccardo Valle

A consensus appears to be emerging among Western intelligence analysts that the Islamic State’s Khurasan Province (ISKP), the group’s provincial affiliate based in Afghanistan, has the intent and may be building up the capacity to conduct external operations beyond the region, including in the West.1 ISKP has recently intimated that it wishes to carry out a 9/11-style attack inside the United States and has intensified its threats and efforts to incite supporters to violence throughout the Western world.

Radicals from Central Asia have accounted for a notable share of recent Islamic State-inspired or -directed plots and attacks in the United States, Europe, Turkey, and Iran. Central Asian militants have taken on an increasingly visible role in ISKP’s local, regional, and international activities.2 In August 2023, U.S. media reported that a facilitator linked to the Islamic State (IS) had recently helped smuggle a group of Uzbeks from Mexico into the United States.3 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in its new threat projection for 2024, assessed that “Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS’s regional branch—ISIS‑Khorasan—has garnered more prominence through a spate of high-casualty attacks overseas and English‑language media releases that aim to globalize the group’s local grievances among Western audiences.” The department also warned that “individuals with terrorism connections are interested in using established travel routes and permissive environments to facilitate access to the United States.”4 In both Germany and the Netherlands, a transnational network of Central Asians with connections to ISKP was rolled up by security forces in July 2023 for plotting acts of terrorism.5

With ISKP bolstering its campaign to appeal to Central Asians in their home countries and in diasporas abroad, it is worth examining this community of radicals and fighters in greater depth. Within the broader Islamic State network, Central Asian fighters—who hail mostly from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan—have increased their focus on Afghanistan in recent years after primarily concentrating their efforts in Iraq and Syria during the rise and fall of the so-called caliphate in the mid- and late-2010s. Although these communities continue to emphasize the plight of families of Central Asian IS fighters held in Syrian detention facilities, the locus of militant efforts is now in Afghanistan. This is partly due to IS in Iraq and Syria being degraded and reverting to its DNA as a guerrilla movement, making it difficult for foreign fighters to join that network. But it is also a result of the ascendance of ISKP, which operates in geographic proximity to Central Asia, and that affiliate’s intense propaganda campaign to appeal to Central Asian extremists, including the production of significant Uzbek- and Tajik-language propaganda by al-Azaim, the group’s in-house media foundation.

This study gives a background on the history of ISKP, focusing in particular on the seminal moment when the group’s predecessor, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), decided to abandon its alliance with the Taliban and join the Islamic State. The essay then examines the structural shift in the pathways that fighters from the post-Soviet space took to join different IS branches; ISKP’s more recent, expanded regionalization strategy following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan; and the threat posed by Central Asian militants to Afghanistan, its northern neighbors, and beyond—including the West.6

Background: The Rise of the Islamic State Khurasan Province

The formation of ISKP was officially announced in January 2015 by then-Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. The group’s formation was the outcome of six months of negotiations between Islamic State cadres in Syria and Iraq and several factions of militant jihadist based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including a notable number of former Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, the Pakistani Taliban) factions under the leadership of commander Hafiz Saeed Orakzai, who would become ISKP’s first emir (leader).7 The newly born group was based in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, particularly in the districts of Achin, Niyazan, Mahmud Dara, Chaparhar, and Shinwar.8 As the group launched armed campaigns against the Kabul government and the Taliban alike, its areas of operations spread, reaching other provinces such as Kunar, Herat, Samangan, Kunduz, Jawzjan, and Kabul.

In its early days, the group mostly attacked Afghan soldiers, members of the country’s Shi’a minority, and the Taliban, including scholars and religious figures who have supported the latter. ISKP’s first operational phase reached a peak in 2016 when the group established a territorial foothold in Afghanistan and began stretching its influence into the country’s northern regions.9 However, the group gradually started to lose territory to Afghan military forces—aided by the US-led international coalition—and the Taliban. The group lost its territorial strongholds in Nangarhar in November 2019 but subsequently proved its resilience, even as the Kabul government announced the complete annihilation of ISKP in late 2019, followed in early 2020 by similar statements from the Taliban. In August 2020, ISKP was able to resume its operations in the form of an intense guerrilla warfare and urban terrorism campaign that the group has sustained to this day. Even after the Taliban took power within Afghanistan in August 2021 and initiated a “counterterrorism” campaign against ISKP that has degraded the group’s operational capabilities, this IS affiliate has been able to expand its reach and messaging beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan, propagating its influence in Iran and Central Asia.10

In ISKP’s history of attracting and absorbing militants from other jihadist groups, the 2015 incorporation of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) marked a seminal moment in the branch’s Central Asian expansion. Whereas ISKP had in part formed out of and further attracted contingents from South Asia and Afghanistan, IMU’s pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State markedly broadened the province’s appeal and scope to include a major, bona fide Central Asian jihadist organization for the first time. Indeed, ISKP’s flagship Voice of Khurasan magazine published by al-Azaim has narrated in detail the important role that Uzbeks and Tajiks have played in the formation and subsequent success of ISKP.11

Years of Turmoil: The IMU Joins the Islamic State and Turns on the Taliban

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was founded in 1994 by Tahir Yuldashev, an Uzbek and former member of the Tajiki al-Nahda Islamist movement that had been banned by Tajikistan’s post-Soviet government and forced into exile in Afghanistan.12 Yuldashev had worked with jihadist strategist Mustafa Hamid in the early 1990s while Hamid was preparing his own “Tajik project” (also known as “al-Furqan project”) together with several important Arab mujahideen who had fought in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, including Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi. This “Tajik project” consisted of training al-Nahda militants in Afghanistan to prepare them to fight in Tajikistan.13 According to Hamid, Yuldashev was part of the al-Nahda Shura Council. He and Hamid met in Taloqan in Afghanistan’s Takhar province while travelling to Tajikistan, and they became close friends to the point that Yuldashev warned Hamid about a plot being hatched by a rival al-Nahda commander to assassinate him.14

Eventually, in 1994, Yuldashev founded his own group, the IMU, with the assistance of another Uzbek commander of al-Nahda, Juma Namangani. In 1999, Yuldashev gave his oath of allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and declared jihad against the Uzbek government. The IMU rapidly expanded thanks to the presence of many Afghan Uzbeks within its ranks, and many of these Uzbeks joined the Taliban at the front in Kabul during the 2001 NATO intervention, in the process strengthening their ties with several other groups of Pakistani and Uyghur militants.15 Although close with the Taliban, IMU had tenser relations with the Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda, which—along with other Arab jihadists in Afghanistan—was trying to undermine the IMU, since they saw it as a competitor. Conversely, the Uzbeks were suspicious of the more Salafi and takfiri16 Arabs. By using ethnicity as leverage (Tajik and Uzbek peoples are closely related and generally considered ethnically Turkic), the Uzbeks often reminded the Arabs that “The Crusades were fought over the Levant and Egypt, but its political leadership and its military heroes were mostly Kurds and Turks.”17 Despite the tension with the so-called “Afghan Arabs,” Taliban-IMU relations were characterized by a general understanding and trust. Mullah Omar reportedly appointed Juma Namangani as supreme commander of the foreign fighters stationed on the frontlines in Kabul during the Taliban’s war with the Northern Alliance.18 Similarly, when the United States-led Operation Enduring Freedom began, Juma Namangani tried to organize the defenses of Kabul alongside the Afghan Taliban, but his forces were routed and he was forced to flee Afghanistan and to retreat to Wana in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan together with Yuldashev and several other Arab and Central Asian fighters.19

Following its retreat from Afghanistan, the IMU remained based in the former tribal areas of Pakistan, forming an operational alliance with the Pakistani Taliban and maintaining its pledge of allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. The IMU was pushed out of Pakistan in 2014 by a Pakistani military operation, Zarb-e-Azb (“Strike of the Prophet’s Sword”),which forced the group to relocate and find haven in Afghanistan’s Zabol province under the hospitality of Afghan Taliban dissident commander Mullah Dadullah.20

Around the same time, in 2014–15, the IMU began to publicly distance itself from the Taliban in a manner that was hard to decipher at the time but becomes clearer in retrospect. By the end of July 2015, the Afghan Taliban could no longer conceal the fate of its leader, Mullah Omar—who had reportedly died in 2013—and announced his death to the world while formally announcing that one of his former deputies, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansoor, had taken his place. It is now clear that the disclosure of his death was preceded and indeed forced by then leader of IMU, Usman Ghazi, who by 2014 was leading the majority of his group away from the Taliban into the fold of ISKP. As part of this rift with the Taliban, Ghazi had begun accusing the Taliban of covering up its leader’s death, accusations that created divisions within the IMU and eventually led to conflict with the Taliban.21

Already in June 2014—before IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate but after the March 2014 defection to IS of nine prominent al-Qaeda members in Waziristan—Ghazi issued a communique which addressed the “Amirs of muhajireen, ansars and mujahids in Khorasan.”22 In addition to highlighting the IMU’s long history of jihadist activities in several parts of the Muslim world, including Syria,23 Ghazi stressed the need to unite all jihadist factions under the leadership of one “iron fist and hit the apostates,” arguing that “when the Ummah is in need of leaders like Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (r.a.) against murtaddeen [apostates],” jihadists should put aside their minor differences and concentrate on the main enemy, which, for Ghazi, was Pakistan.24 In other words, Ghazi was implying that al-Baghdadi’s organization should assume the leadership of the global jihadist movement.

It is interesting to note that at the time of this publication in June 2014, Ghazi still referred to Mullah Omar by his honorific, Amir al-Mu’mineen (“commander of the faithful”), even though just a few months later, in September 2014, Ghazi released a new statement openly supporting the Islamic State’s caliphal project.25 Ghazi seems to have decided to adopt a pragmatic approach to the issue of his bay’ah (oath of allegiance) to Mullah Omar, to whom he was still bound despite now supporting al-Baghdadi.26 As the former’s death was not yet public knowledge in 2014, retracting bay’ah would have drawn immense criticism to the IMU and potentially harm his prestige within jihadist circles.27

Additionally, it is significant that Ghazi made note of Central Asian militants fighting in Syria in his 2014 communique.28 Indeed, several Central Asian fighters were already present in the Levant at the time and were fighting under the banner of al-Qaeda or loosely connected to the group.29 Other Central Asian militants remained independent and acted as mercenary groups in the war, including Malhama Tactical and Muhojir Tactical, both comprised of Uzbek militants, which developed ties with Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the Idlib region.30

Due to the presence of Central Asian fighters on several battlefields, members of IMU had a natural attraction toward IS (and, subsequently, for ISKP after the inception of this provincial affiliate in 2015). The Islamic State’s more bellicose, transnational, and dynamic approach furthered offered the IMU a chance to finally renew jihad in Uzbekistan.31

At the same time, while Ghazi was pushing for unity among various jihadist factions, the IMU was suffering from internal divisions. Ghazi’s supporters advocated for joining IS while another faction emerged, wanting to stay loyal to the Afghan Taliban.32 Then, in May 2015, a video from Jundullah, IMU’s media wing, appeared on social media channels that compared Yuldashev and al-Baghdadi, stating Yuldashev’s position on the question of a caliphate.33

Also in 2015, several statements from Ghazi started to circulate questioning the Afghan Taliban’s position that Mullah Omar was still alive. In late June 2015, Ghazi finally released a message in which he openly accused the Taliban of hiding Mullah Omar’s death and issuing orders in his name, thus betraying those who were fighting under the banner of the emirate.34 Ghazi claimed that the Taliban had known for a long time of Mullah Omar’s fate but kept it secret for the sake of the unity of the ummah (community of Muslim faithful). He then quoted several Islamic scholars and hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) in order to support his argument that the IMU was freed of any allegiance to the Taliban, stating that an absent person (i.e., “someone absent, killed, captured, or incapacitated”) cannot be Amir al-Mu’mineen. A week later, on August 6, 2015, Jundullah released a new video of Ghazi openly declaring bay’ah to al-Baghdadi.35

The pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State from one of the most prestigious groups in jihadist circles was a considerable boost for IS’s morale, especially for the IMU’s Uzbek fighters who were already fighting alongside IS operatives in Iraq (these fighters publicly celebrated Ghazi’s speech by releasing a video from Wilayat al-Furat).36 It is interesting to note that IMU’s sectarian and takfiri mufti, Abu Zar al-Burmi, played an important role in IMU’s pledge to IS. Al-Burmi acted as a spiritual mentor not only for Usman Ghazi, but also for many Central Asian fighters.37 Jacob Zenn has described Abu Zar as an “interlocutor between the IMU and its Urdu-speaking Pakistan hosts in the tribal areas,” elaborating how “as a muhajir, or migrant, by ancestry, Abu Zar could legitimately represent other migrants from Central Asia.”38 Researcher Florian Flade has described him as representing “Jihadi globalization” since he was “a Pakistani-educated cleric of Burmese origin … preaching the idea of International Jihad to foreign fighters in Pakistan’s tribal areas in fluent Arabic and Urdu.”39

A month after Ghazi’s pledge to al-Baghdadi, another group of Central Asian fighters from the Jundullah faction also raised the black flags under the leadership of their commander Qari Salahuddin.40 Jundullah was an armed group based in northeastern Afghanistan comprising Uzbeks, Tajiks, and other Central Asian ethnicities. It was formed in 2009 by commanders who had split from the IMU over internal issues. While splitting from the IMU, Jundullah maintained its allegiance to the Taliban, remaining based primarily in Kunduz province. Ultimately, rivalries and dissatisfaction toward the Taliban led the group to join ISKP.

Furthermore, Qari Hekmat, an Uzbek who had served as shadow governor of Darzab district in Jawzjan for the Taliban before being demoted, also took the chance to expand his personal power and snub the Taliban by joining ISKP around this time. Though side-lined by the Taliban, Qari Hekmat was still in control of his districts and thus brought them under the sway of ISKP, coordinating his movements with ISKP’s command in Jalalabad and attracting new fighters from Chechnya, Russia, and Tajikistan.41 He successfully kept control of his districts until 2018, even conquering new territories around Darzab and Qush Tepa by taking advantage of Taliban difficulties in reaching remote, peripheral areas of northwestern Afghanistan.42

After initially expanding in Afghanistan’s southern Zabul province—where IMU was based at the time following its displacement from Pakistan’s tribal areas—and in the north of Afghanistan, ISKP lost its territorial foothold in both regions when the ISKP-aligned factions of the IMU was crushed by the Taliban in late 2015. For a brief period of time, the IMU disappeared. Indeed, in November 2015, the Taliban issued a statement explaining their attack against the IMU and specifically against Mullah Dadullah, a rival of Taliban Emir Muhammad Akhtar Mansoor who was hosting Usman Ghazi in Zabul.43

However, in June 2016, the IMU resurfaced and released a new statement which disavowed al-Baghdadi. This statement declared that al-Baghdadi was not a caliph but merely the emir of the Islamic State and reaffirmed IMU’s commitment to decisions made by past leaders, such as Tahir Yuldashev. Thus, IMU implied a renewed allegiance to the Taliban.44 It became clear that, while ISKP-aligned factions of the IMU had indeed been crushed by the Taliban in 2015, many Central Asian militants survived the clashes and pledged renewed allegiance to the Taliban in order to avoid such wrath. The prominent cleric Abu Zar al-Burmi serves as one clear example of this trend. By the end of 2016, these militants had reorganized with support from the Taliban, reestablishing a Taliban-aligned IMU.

Amid IMU reorganization, some Central Asian fighters chose to remain loyal to IS—joining ISKP likely in toto. The merger of disgruntled IMU fighters with ISKP shifted the paradigm for Central Asian jihadists and allowed ISKP to gain experienced fighters, commanders, ideologues, recruiters, fundraisers, and an Uzbek-language media apparatus to expand its reach beyond Afghanistan’s northern borders. While the Taliban had long held an ostensible monopoly on alliances with Central Asian jihadists, the defection of many IMU jihadists to ISKP shifted this advantage to the Islamic State, showing the potential for building a support base in Central Asia. In a notable sign of this pivot, Tahir Yuldashev’s son was reportedly killed in Afghanistan while fighting for ISKP in 2019.45

IS further capitalized on the Taliban’s actions against the IMU, portraying the Taliban as Pashtun-centric and hostile to Uzbeks and other Afghan minorities that formed the core of IMU. In January 2016, IS’s Dabiq magazine published an interview with ISKP’s wali (“governor”) in which he fumed about “the treacherous, deviant, nationalist Taliban movement” killing Uzbek militants. He scorned the Taliban, claiming that the group had “increased in its tyranny and criminality by purposely killing their defenseless women and children, with the movement’s fighters executing them, sparing no one they could find.”46 Similar statements have been made over the years not only by ISKP officials, but also by Islamic State affiliates elsewhere in the world, such as the group’s provincial affiliate based in India.

Full article here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-poli...-asian-contingents-their-international-threat