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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Tajikistan Accuses Islamic Party of IS Ties |
| 2015-08-30 |
| [AnNahar] Tajikistan on Saturday accused the country's beleaguered Islamic party of ties with the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group based mainly in Iraq and Syria. Members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) have been "in active contact with holy warriors in Syria" and have responded to the holy warriors request to "raise the black flag of IS," an interior ministry front man said. "Activists and members of the IRPT directly engaged in the propaganda of IS's bully boy ideas, destabilizing the peaceful situation in different parts of Tajikistan by raising the black flag of IS," the front man told Agence La Belle France Presse. He said "around 20" people had been jugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in connection with flag-raising incidents in the southern provincial towns of Shaartuz and Nurek but did not say how many were members of IRPT. An IRPT spokesperson in Nurek confirmed one of its members had been arrested but said the party lacked enough information to comment further. Party representatives in Shaartuz could not be reached for comment. Critics of Tajikistan's highly authoritarian secular government will view the arrests as further pressure on a party it recognized as legitimate following a bloody five-year civil war that ended in 1997. Citing the party's lack of formal representation in almost 60 regions and cities, the Central Asian country's justice ministry on Friday ordered IRPT to "cease its illegal activities" in a move seen as an effective ban on the country's largest opposition party. On Tuesday, an economic court in the Tajik capital sealed off the party's headquarters. The party became an umbrella opposition bloc following the U.N.-backed 1997 peace deal struck in Moscow between the government and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) but failed to win a single seat in a disputed March vote that left 62-year-old President Emomali Rakhmon's party unchecked in the parliament. Analysts have warned that the government crackdown on the party could radicalize the moderate Moslem opposition. Tajikistan's security structures say up to 600 nationals are fighting with faceless myrmidons in Iraq and Syria. |
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