Crime and Justice International Magazine - Sam Houston State University

Led by Tahir Yuldosh, former leader of Uzbekistan’s Adolat party, and originally focused on overthrowing the regime of President Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan and establishing an Islamist state within that territory, the IMU in June of 2001 changed its name to the Islamic Party of Turkestan and expanded its focus to establishing an Islamic state throughout Central Asia. Through its pan-Islamic paradigm, the IMU has been able to increase both its area of operations as well as its funding opportunities. Specifically, the IMU has been able to garner funding from Al-Qaeda¹ and other like-minded groups.

 

This funding has not been without benefit for Al-Qaeda. As the IMU has become closer to Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, the IMU’s goals have expanded to include many of Al-Qaeda’s objectives. During the years leading up to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan it is believed that the Taliban harbored and trained IMU militants eventually, with Al-Qaeda’s assistance, building the IMU force to several thousand.

In addition to extremist attacks – several deadly bombings in Tashkent in February 1999 and the kidnapping of four American mountaineers in August 2004 are the best known – the IMU has played a significant role in drug trafficking in Central Asia.

After the U.S. presence was established, many of the IMU militants fled to the Afghan-Pakistan border, along with fleeing Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Its size reduced, the IMU has not been able to carry out the small arms attacks, car bombings, and kidnappings that used to be the hallmark of the group.

More recently, however, there has been consistent speculation that the IMU is making a comeback within Central Asia.² There has been an increase in militant activity around the border region of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and Central Asian governments, predominantly Tajikistan, have been quick to point to the IMU as the likely perpetrator.

In addition to drug trafficking and extremism, the IMU has also served the region as a politically expedient excuse for cracking down on native populations. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan particularly have been known to utilize the IMU as an excuse to eliminate political dissent. This constant reference to the group makes it difficult to judge the true size and capabilities of the IMU or the magnitude of its supposed comeback.

Now thought to have a total of only 200-700 militants, the IMU is currently not the threat to stability it once was. Its continuing recruitment along the borders of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and its survival in the Afghan-Pakistan border region makes the revival of the group a possibility, while at the same time, the Central Asian governments’ consistent scapegoating makes the IMU seem a larger threat than they are.

Notes

1. U.S. Department of State. Redesignation of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. September 25, 2002.