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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| IMU now based in Pakistan |
| 2005-03-22 |
| Islam Karimov must be pleased. Instead of pursuing their proclaimed aim of toppling the Uzbek president's regime, the remnants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are fighting for survival. And not in Uzbekistan, but in the rugged, autonomous tribal areas of Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan. And they have little chance of returning to Uzbekistan. The IMU--or what was left of it--arrived in Pakistan after the government of the Afghan Taliban was toppled by the Americans. The relationship between the Taliban and IMU is as old as the IMU, and goes back a long way before the attacks of 9/11 that prompted the U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban. After the Taliban had captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, in September 1996, Juma Namangani and Tahir Yoldashev--long-time opponents of Karimov--held a press conference in the city to announce the formation of the IMU. Namangani, who had served as a Soviet paratrooper in Afghanistan in the 1980s, became the group's leader (or Ameer) and Yoldashev its military commander. Their aim was to topple Karimov and turn Uzbekistan, and ultimately the whole of Central Asia, into an Islamic state. The Taliban provided them with a place to shelter and train--and to plot against Karimov. The Taliban were inclined to do this because Karimov was supporting one of their opponents in the north, the Uzbek-Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. Karimov hoped Dostum--a former communist--would serve as a secular buffer between Uzbekistan and the fundamentalist regime in Kabul. But it was not all power politics. The Taliban and the IMU--as well as other foreign militants in Afghanistan--shared the same ideas, believing in a world-wide Islamic state where nationality would be irrelevant. The IMU in Taliban Afghanistan was involved in policy-making. It "had real influence," says Behroz Khan, the bureau chief of the Pakistani daily The News in Peshawar. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |