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AP: Uzbek Rebel Leader Wants Islamic State
 The leader of a group of rebels claiming to control this Uzbek border town said Wednesday that he and his supporters intend to build an Islamic state and were ready to fight if government troops attempt to crush their revolt.
"We will be building an Islamic state here in accordance with the Quran," Bakhtiyor Rakhimov told The Associated Press while leaning down from the back of a horse. Tense but confident, the bearded 42-year-old farmer, wearing a traditional Uzbek embroidered black-and-white skull cup, snapped his fingers as he gave orders to an assistant. It was unclear how many people he commanded, but there was no sign of any Uzbek government officials in the town of about 20,000. "The town is in the hands of people. People are tired of slavery," he said as he kept an eye on two roads converging at an intersection in Korasuv.
| You think you're tired now, just wait for the Caliphate |
However, Uzbek Interior Minister Zakir Almatov shrugged off the militant's claims. "It's all sheer nonsense, everything is normal there," he said when asked whether the government intends to move against insurgents in Korasuv. "If anything had happened there, I already would have been there."
| "Remain calm, all is well" |
| Thank you, Uzbek Bob. In further news... |
The uprising in Korasuv began Saturday, a day after government troops violently crushed an uprising in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan. Protesters in Korasuv, 20 miles from Andijan, set fire to a police headquarters, a tax police office and several traffic police posts, and they looted several other government buildings. They also beat up several police officers and local officials, forcing them to flee the town. President Islam Karimov blamed the unrest in Andijan on extremist Islamic groups that seek to overthrow his secular government and create an Islamic state.
| Either that, or the Islamists are trying to do the Bolshevik thing and take over what others have started... |
| Sort of the way the shopkeepers in Iran supported the Ayatollah against the Shah, til it was too late -- "we did WHAT???" |
At the Andijan protest, only social and economic demands could be heard as speaker after speaker complained about stark poverty and widespread unemployment and the government's stifling of private business. They denied having any Islamic agenda.
But observers of the impoverished Central Asia region have long feared that any social unrest could be used by Islamic groups to promote their own goals. Karimov's government has been struggling with fundamentalist Islamic groups since the nation of 25 million gained independence with the 1991 Soviet collapse. Many see the rapid spread of radical Islam that initially emerged here as a backlash from Karimov's heavy-handed crackdown on Islamists, which has swept up many innocent Muslims.
| So, there wasn't any Islamists till he cracked down on the Islamists? |
| That makes sense. In an Islamic kind of way... |
Karimov's restrictive economic polices and widespread official graft in the government have created an army of desperately poor and jobless youth who have become an easy target for recruitment by Islamic groups. Karimov banned all secular opposition political parties in the early 1990s and jailed or forced into exile their main leaders.
| Learned his trade under the Soviets... |
Rakhimov presented an idealistic view of the future in an Islamic state. "We will turn this land into gardens. If I turn this land into a good place, if everybody here will have plenty of food on the table, it will spread further. We will work in the fields, we will open the borders with Kyrgyzstan and reach Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the rest of the world," he went on, reflecting one of the central ideas of most radical Islamic groups active in the region: the creation of a worldwide Islamic state.
| "We will go on to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ohio, then to the White house, Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!" |
One of the triggers of the uprising in Korasuv was the authorities' closure of the border with Kyrgyzstan two years ago. After Saturday's revolt, town residents restored the bridge spanning a river separating the two countries. "All decisions will be taken by people at a mosque. There will be rule of Shariah law," Rakhimov went on. "Thieves and other criminals will be tried by the people themselves."
| "Under the gentle, enlightened guidence of a holy man, like me. I've got a turban on order and everything." |
| Sounds like he got his ideas under the Soviets, too. |
Among the groups that promote such ideas, the one that probably has the most followers in formerly Soviet Central Asia is the Hizb-ut-Tarir party, which Uzbek authorities accuse of inspiring a series of terror attacks in the capital Tashkent and the central city of Bukhara last year that killed more than 50. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which claims to reject violence, denied responsibility.
Rakhimov said he and his supporters did not belong to any specific Islamic organization. "We are just people," he said. "We just follow the Quran."
| "We are open for bids, naming rights are still available" |
Asked if he was afraid that government soldiers would try to regain control of Korasuv by force, as they did in Andijan, he said: "They came here today, a few military people. I turned them back."
| "I showed them my turban and they ran away!" |
"It's the spirit of those killed in Andijan that protect us," said his assistant Arab-Polvon Badanboyev, 50. "We will sort it out with Karimov," Rakhimov said. "Soldiers and police are also sons of this people. We don't have weapons, but if they come and attack us we will fight even with knives," he said.
Posted by: Steve 2005-05-18 |
