Afghan, Pakistani conflicts spilling into Central Asian states?

[Merlin]

It is possible that they are spilling over, first to Tajikistan at the north of Afghanistan.

Afghan, Pakistani conflicts spilling into Central Asian states?

30 July [CSMonitor] Tajikistan blames recent attacks at home on fighters fleeing anti-Taliban offensives. Security was the topic at a regional summit in Dushanbe Thursday.

Dushanbe, Tajikistan - A spate of militant clashes in Tajikistan may indicate that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan are spilling beyond their borders – a top concern for neighboring Central Asian nations and Russia.

The rise in violence comes as Pakistan wraps up an assault on militants in the north and Western forces intensify a campaign against insurgents in Afghanistan ahead of an Aug. 20 election. The offensives may be pushing foreigners fighting in either country to flee the conflict and return home. ....

The issue of regional security was raised at a Thursday summit in Dushanbe with the presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Russia. ....

Militants linked to Pakistan, Afghanistan
Tajikistan, which shares a 750-mile border with Afghanistan, sits on the front line of spillover effects.

Last Saturday, two explosions rocked Dushanbe. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Tajik government said the perpetrators were linked to the Taliban.

A week earlier, police detained three Tajik men whom the police allege were plotting terrorist attacks in the country. The Interior Ministry said they were "active members of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) [who] participated in the fights against the coalition forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan and against government forces in Pakistan's region of Waziristan." The US lists the IMU as a terrorist group. .....

Shoot-outs near Afghan border
Also this month, security forces have been involved in at least four shootouts in Tavildara, near the Afghan border. In one clash, they killed five militants from Russia who may been associated with five Chechens arrested earlier this month who were planning "to transfer money earned from drug trafficking to terrorist organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan," according to the police report.

According to local media reports, government forces are also fighting the armed group of Mullo Abdullo, a former field commander who fought on the opposition during the 1990s civil war and left for Afghanistan after it ended because he was dissatisfied with the peace treaty. Villagers in Tavildara report that he has returned and brought "many armed men."

Target: the new US supply route
The rise in violence may be tied to the United States attempts to find a new supply line through Tajikistan for its forces in Afghanistan, after convoys on its main route in Pakistan were repeatedly attacked by militants.

Tajikistan has agreed to provide its territory for the transit of nonlethal cargo to supply US troops in Afghanistan. This route, called the Northern Distribution Network, goes through the Baltics, Russia, and Central Asian states.

The Taliban have warned the Tajik government against cooperating with the US. ...

Just an internal affair
Some analysts, however, say the recent shootouts have little to do with Taliban and instead reflect domestic conflict.

MirzahudjaAkhmedov, an opposition field commander during the civil war, says these incidents are part of the standoff between the government and former warlords who fought in the opposition during the civil war.

Many of them still feel cheated, says Mr. Akhmedov. Although a peace treaty was signed in 1997 and warlords were folded into the government, once current President Emomali Rakhmon consolidated his power after 2000, they began to lose their seats. ....

[Merlin]

They are spreading north to other Central Asia states. Kyrgyztan is further up north and does not share a common border with Afghanistan.

Central Asia Sounds Alarm on Islamic Radicalism

17 Aug [NYTimes] KOSH-KORGON, Kyrgyzstan — The three men were locals who were said to have once crossed into nearby Afghanistan to wage war alongside the Taliban. They then returned, militant wayfarers apparently bent on inciting an Afghan-style insurgency in this tinderbox of a valley in Central Asia. By late June, they were holed up in a house here, stockpiling Kalashnikov rifles ...

Their exact plans will most likely never be known. The Kyrgyz security services tracked them down a week after their arrival and stormed the building, according to officials and village residents. All three men were killed, ...

The security operation was one in a recent spate of firefights and attacks in Central Asia that have raised concerns that homegrown militants with experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan may be trying to move north to take on the region’s brittle governments.

Senior officials and analysts across Central Asia have said in recent weeks that there is evidence that some Central Asians who were allied with the Taliban are retreating from Afghanistan because of pressure from the NATO mission there. .....

The officials and analysts said one result could be a strengthening of Islamic movements in Central Asia, especially here in the Fergana Valley, which includes parts of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. All three countries are former Soviet republics with secular leaders and Muslim populations.

The valley has long been considered one of the region’s most unstable areas because of poverty, militancy and loose borders. In 2005, in the Uzbek section of the valley, soldiers killed hundreds of people massing in an antigovernment protest.

Warnings about the spread of Islamic radicalism to Central Asia are not new, and the region’s governments have long used this supposed threat to justify severe restrictions on political freedom. But if these recent signs point to a revival, it could pose difficulties for the United States and other NATO members, which have military bases throughout Central Asia that support operations in Afghanistan. ....