The terror dividend
Suicide bombings in Uzbekistan may have saved its US aid package
Nick Paton Walsh
Two days of intense violence in Uzbekistan have left more than 40 people dead, mostly
police and alleged terrorists.
The TV shows little of the carnage left by Islamist suicide bombers.
Uzbekistan - for years an outcast for its savage treatment of Islam - is suddenly the
latest victim of terrorism. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has rang his Uzbek
counterpart, Islam Karimov, and offered his support. The White House said the incident
strengthened the United States' resolve to work with Uzbekistan in the "war on
terror".
But while reporters and diplomats have seen the corpses and felt the
terror of the blasts, the abiding reaction as to why this has happened is paranoid
confusion. The government has been quick to blame Hizbut Tahrir (HT), the group it has
been attempting to suppress for years, fearing their brand of hardline Islamism might set
the arid, exploited and impoverished plains of Uzbekistan alight.
When officials said they "found" leaflets advocating HT at
the scene of a bomb factory, it came as little surprise. Such leaflets tend to turn up at
the scene of most criminal events in the country.
Hizbut Tahrir denied any involvement in the blast and is very
protective of its peaceful image. And while the US state department has showed concern
over HT's increasingly hardline rhetoric, Washington and London have yet to declare them a
terrorist group. It does seem baffling that, under the omniscient controls of a police
state, they can turn from leaflets and prayer to launching a small war on the Uzbek
authorities quite so quickly.
After yesterday's attacks more experienced fingers were pointing
towards the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The group was founded by a Taliban
associate, Juma Namangani, who the US says set up the group with money from Osama bin
Laden. Yet he was thought to have been killed and his group shattered by the US-led
Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. There has been speculation that the blasts
could be linked to the wounding of another IMU leader, Tahir Yuldash, during ongoing
operations on the borders of Pakistan.
However, a senior western diplomat said: "There have been signs
that the IMU are regrouping and forming terror-like cells instead of armed units. I think
this might be a link up with al-Qaida and the IMU."
This explanation may be the most likely, but is also in doubt. One
local analyst said: "The IMU have been out of the picture for ages. They're
finished."
The multiple attacks and suicide bombers suggest that al-Qaida may be
involved, if not simply mimicked.
Whoever was behind this week's terror attacks, one result is clear. A
fear of shootouts, sieges and suicide bombers dominates streets that were once
characterised by an all-consuming fear of the state. I recall once asking that favourite
source of the lazy foreign correspondent - a taxi driver - what he thought of the regime
of President Karimov. He refused to answer, pointing at his dashboard, saying: "they
hear everything", as if the security services had secretly bugged his Lada.
A further crackdown against extremists is inevitable. The diplomat
added: "The timing is very fortunate for the government who have just refused to let
the opposition campaign in the elections."
Then there is the small matter of the $100m in aid from Washington. The
US has wise laws that forbid it to fund regimes that have appalling human rights records.
Uzbekistan's staggering abuses were, next month, expected to ensure the state department
certified them a regime too horrible to fund. Many considered this judgment too little too
late, considering that in 2002 the state department accused the Uzbek police of
"routine torture" while simultaneously giving them an $80m aid package.
After the deaths of 41 Uzbeks in terror attacks, the Karimov regime has
moved from being an embarrassment to Washington and a world pariah to again being a firm
ally in the "war on terror".
But if Islamist extremists are proved to have been responsible for this
week's attacks, perhaps it was the secular state's harsh treatment of Muslims that made
them a target for the international jihad.
“The Guardian”, March 30, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ |