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2 Salafists challenge Kazakh
future By Jacob Zenn
Kazakhstan has experienced a rise in
militant activity carried out by Salafist groups
on its territory and periphery since late 2011.
The Salafists' rejection of secularism and other
types of Islam and their call for a return to the
ways of the Salaf, or pious ancestors who lived at
the time of Muhammad and the first four caliphs,
are regarded by the Kazakh government - and most
Kazakhs - as incompatible with the country's
political and social institutions and the native
brand of Islam that is strongly flavored by Kazakh
customs and traditions. [1]
For this
reason, Kazakhs often refer to Salafists as
Wahhabis, denoting the puritanical form of Sunni
Islam prevalent in Saudi
Arabia that has made
inroads into Central Asia in the post-Soviet era.
In the words of Kazakhstan's President
Nursultan Nazarbayev, speaking in July, "radical
and extremist elements" in Kazakhstan have "put
enormous pressure on the state and on society as a
whole". This article tracks recent developments in
Salafist militancy in Kazakhstan and the Central
Asia region and reviews Kazakhstan's
"counter-Salafism" strategy, the long-term impact
of which will likely be diminished by forces
beyond Kazakhstan's control.
Jund
al-Khilafah and domestic militancy In the
last three months of 2011, three Jund al-Khilafah
(Army of the Caliphate) cells carried out the
first terrorist attacks in Kazakhstan's history,
targeting government buildings and personnel in
Atyrau, Taraz and Almaty.
According to
sources in Kazakhstan, one of Jund al-Khilafah's
founders from Atyrau became a Salafist militant
when he was arbitrarily denied permission by
Kazakh authorities to study Islam in Saudi Arabia.
With two companions from Atyrau, he then fled to
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, where they
established Jund al-Khilafah while maintaining
networks with Salafists in Kazakhstan who could
carry out attacks on the home front. [2]
Jund al-Khilafah also heightened its
profile through posts on online jihadi forums,
such as al-Qaeda's Ansar al-Mujahideen forum,
claiming responsibility for each of the three
attacks. The movement also issued video statements
denouncing the 2011 "massacre" of striking oil
workers in Zhanaozen and President Nursultan
Nazarbayev's religious policies, which Jund
al-Khilfah claims prohibits government officials
from praying in state institutions, men from
growing beards and women from wearing the hijab.
[3]
Jund al-Khilafah has not carried out
attacks in Kazakhstan in 2012, but another
Salafist group in Kostanay (northern Kazakhstan)
was uncovered facilitating the travel of Salafists
to Afghanistan by providing them with fraudulent
documents. Elsewhere, members of a group in
Atyrau, possibly related to Jund al-Khilafah, were
caught sending money to Kazakh militants abroad
through bank transfers to Pakistan.
In
addition, a group in Tausamaly (a village outside
of Almaty) set off a gas explosion in a safe-house
on July 11, while creating a home-made bomb,
killing eight people. A search of the premises
uncovered guns, ammunition, religious literature
and police and SWAT team uniforms. In an August 17
follow-up operation to arrest the leaders of that
cell, Kazakh security forces killed nine people
who reportedly refused to surrender.
During the investigation, it was revealed
the suspects kept their wives locked up in
apartments to prevent them from communicating with
the outside world. Most recently, on September 12,
a special forces operation in Atyrau raided a flat
where suspected terrorists who set off an
accidental explosion that killed one person on
September 5 were believed to be residing.
Salafism on Kazakhstan's periphery
The rise of militancy north of Kazakhstan,
in the Russian republics of Tatarstan and
Bashkortostan, may be connected to the rise of
militancy in Kazakhstan. Ravil Kusainov, one of
the founders of Jund al-Khilafah, declared in an
interview to the jihadi media outlet Minbar Media
that Jund al-Khilafah consists of nationals from
different countries. His name and the name of
another founder, Rinat Habiulla, are also
distinctly Tatar.
On July 19, a Salafist
militant group injured Tatarstan's chief mufti,
Idlus Faizov, in a car-bomb assassination attempt
in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan. One hour before
that attack, different members of that group
succeeded in killing the chief of the education
department of the Spiritual Board of the Muslims
of Tatarstan, Valiulla Yakupov, in a shooting
outside his residence. Both religious leaders were
known for their efforts to cleanse Salafism from
Tatarstan's religious institutions.
The
"Mujahideen of Tatarstan" issued a pair of videos
on YouTube, the first of which announced the
formation of the group on the morning of the
attacks. In this video, "Muhammad," the military
amir of the group, said the Tatarstan Mujahideen
were prepared to carry out attacks on the orders
of Caucasus Emirate leader Dokku Umarov, who has
sought to establish a front in Russia's Volga and
Far East regions for nearly a decade. [4]
According to Russian officials, there is
an entire generation prepared to carry out
extremist activity in Tatarstan, with well over
100 people having been arrested for extremist
activity there since 2006. These include the owner
of a company that organizes pilgrimages, the head
of a mosque in Tatarstan and an Uzbekistan
national who are all suspects in the recent
shootings of two religious leaders.
Tatarstan's neighbor, Bashkortostan, has
also seen growing signs of militancy.
Bashkortostan's southern border is only 300
kilometers from the northern Kazakhstan city of
Aktobe, where four members of a Salafist militant
cell were convicted in October 2011 for carrying
out police shootings.
In June 2012, five
members of a Hizb ut-Tahrir cell were arrested in
Bashkortostan for preparing and distributing
leaflets, books, brochures and videos
propagandizing "extremist views". In addition, an
eight-person cell was arrested in late 2011 while
preparing experimental explosions for an attack on
Bashkortostan's district headquarters. Like Jund
al-Khilafah's founders, the suspects were alleged
to have planned an escape to Afghanistan through
Kazakhstan.
Other regional
developments To Kazakhstan's south, the
Salafist-influenced group Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) has
taken advantage of Kyrgyzstan's weak internal
security. HuT was founded by diaspora Palestinians
in 1952 and believes it is obligatory for every
Muslim to work toward the reestablishment of the
Islamic Caliphate; that no other system of law but
Sharia is permissible; and that it is haram
(forbidden) for Muslim states to seek protection
from America or other kufr (non-Islamic) states.
[5]
HuT has been repressed to near
extinction in Uzbekistan, where it first gained
popularity in Central Asia in the 1990s, and most
of Kazakhstan, but in Kyrgyzstan HuT has
re-emerged with an estimated 20,000 to 100,000
members. [6]
Moreover, after ethnic
clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern
Kyrgyzstan in 2010, HuT made inroads into northern
Kyrgyzstan and areas near the Kazakhstan border,
especially among the internally displaced people
from the south now living near Bishkek, where
Kazakhs have been among those arrested for
proselytizing for HuT. Although HuT members
profess non-violence, some of them have been
radicalized by way of their increased contacts
with Afghanistan. Notably, Kyrgyz fighters are
believed to comprise the majority of fighters in
Jund al-Khilafah. [7] In the North
Caucasus, where Dokku Umarov's Caucasus Emirate is
based, Kazakhs have been found among captured or
killed militants more frequently than any other
Central Asian nationality, although it might be
possible that many of these "Kazakhs" are ethnic
Chechens who have returned to their homeland more
than half-a-century after Stalin deported the
entire Chechen population to Kazakhstan in the
1940s.
The proximity of the North Caucasus
to Atyrau and western Kazakhstan and the trade and
transportations links that connect the two Caspian
Sea coastal areas may also explain the rise of
Salafism in western Kazakhstan. Religious
extremist groups were historically only found in
southern Kazakhstan's Shymkent and Kentau regions,
which are home to Kazakhstan's more religiously
conservative Uzbek minority, but the estimated
5,000 Salafists between the ages of 13 and 30 in
Atyrau is a sign of Salafism's spread to ethnic
Kazakh regions of the country.
In
addition, Jund al-Khilafah and other Central Asian
Salafist groups continue to propagate the militant
ideas of Aleksandr Tikhomirov, an ethnic Buryat
Russian who converted to Islam with an adopted
name Said Buryatsky and was killed in battle in
the North Caucasus in March 2009.
Further abroad, the rise of
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the emergence
of Salafist political parties in Egypt, Libya and
Tunisia provide newfound legitimacy for political
Islam - a challenge to the secular,
Nazarbayev-centric regime in Kazakhstan.
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