[theluckycountry]

Why the World’s Eyes Are on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan Border
October 6, 2021

the bloody civil war that tore Tajikistan apart between 1992 and 1997. Between 1990, when the USSR began to collapse, and 1992, when the civil war began, a thousand mosques—more than one a day—opened across the country. Saudi Arabia’s money and influence rushed into the country

FULL Article

Afghanistan and Tajikistan share a 1,400-kilometer border. Recently, a war of words has erupted between Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon and the Taliban government in Kabul. Rahmon censures the Taliban for the destabilization of Central Asia by the export of militant groups, while the Taliban leadership has accused Tajikistan’s government of interference.

Earlier this summer, Rahmon mobilized 20,000 troops to the border, and held military exercises and discussions with Russia and other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the Afghan government—Zabihullah Mujahid—tweeted pictures of Afghan troops deployed to Takhar province on the border of the two countries. The escalation of harsh language continues. Prospects of war between these two countries should not be discounted, but—given the role Russia plays in Tajikistan—it is unlikely.

Panjshir Exiles

On September 3, 2021, Afghanistan’s former Vice President Amrullah Saleh tweeted, “The RESISTANCE is continuing and will continue. I am here with my soil, for my soil & defending its dignity.” A few days later, the Taliban took the Panjshir Valley, where Saleh had taken refuge for the past fortnight, and Saleh slipped across the border into Tajikistan. The resistance inside Afghanistan died down.

From 2001, Saleh had worked closely with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and then had become the head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (2004-2010). He had previously worked closely with Ahmad Shah Massoud of the right-wing Jamiat-e Islami and of the Northern Alliance.

Saleh fled by helicopter to Tajikistan with Massoud’s son Ahmad. They were later joined in Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe by Abdul Latif Pedram, leader of the National Congress Party of Afghanistan. These men followed the lead of the Northern Alliance, which had taken refuge in Tajikistan’s Kulob region after the Taliban victory in 1996. The personal ties between Ahmad Shah Massoud and Tajikistan’s President Rahmon go back to the early 1990s. In March 2021, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Tajikistan Mohammad Zahir Aghbar remembered that in the early 1990s Massoud told a group of Tajik fighters in Kabul, “I do not want the war in Afghanistan to be transferred to Tajikistan under the banner of Islam. It is enough that our country has been fraudulently destroyed. Go and make peace in your country.” That Massoud had backed the anti-government United Tajik Opposition, led by the Islamic Renaissance Party, is conveniently forgotten.

After the Taliban took Kabul on August 15, 2021, and just before Saleh and Massoud escaped to Dushanbe, on September 2 Rahmon conferred upon the late Ahmad Shah Massoud the highest civilian award of Tajikistan, the Order of Ismoili Somoni. This, the protection afforded to the Saleh-led resistance movement, and Tajikistan’s refusal to recognize the Taliban government in Kabul sent a clear signal to the Taliban from Rahmon’s government.

Rahmon says that the main reason is that he is dismayed by the Taliban’s anti-Tajik stance. But this is not entirely the case. One in four Afghans are Tajiks, while half of Kabul claims Tajik ancestry. The economy minister—Qari Din Mohammad Hanif—is not only Tajik, but comes from the Badakhshan province that borders Tajikistan. The real reason is Rahmon’s concerns about regional destabilization.

Tajik Taliban

On September 11, 2021, Saidmukarram Abdulqodirzoda, the head of Tajikistan’s Islamic Council of Ulema, condemned the Taliban as being anti-Islamic in its treatment of women and in its promotion of terrorism. Abdulqodirzoda, the lead imam in Tajikistan, has led a decade-long process to purge “extremists” from the ranks of the mosque leaders. Many foreign-trained imams have been replaced (Abdulqodirzoda had been trained in Islamabad, Pakistan), and foreign funding of mosques has been closely monitored.

Abdulqodirzoda frequently talks about the bloody civil war that tore Tajikistan apart between 1992 and 1997. Between 1990, when the USSR began to collapse, and 1992, when the civil war began, a thousand mosques—more than one a day—opened across the country. Saudi Arabia’s money and influence rushed into the country, as did the influence of the right-wing Afghan leaders Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Rahmon—as chair of the Supreme Assembly of Tajikistan (1992-1994) and then as president (from 1994)—led the fight against the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), which was eventually crushed by 1997.

The ghost of the civil war reappeared in 2010, when Mullah Amriddin Tabarov, a commander in the IRP, founded Jamaat Ansarullah. In 1997, Tabarov fled to join the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), one of the fiercest of the extremist groups in that era. The IMU and Tabarov developed close ties with Al Qaeda, fleeing Afghanistan and Uzbekistan after the U.S. invasion of 2001 for Iraq, later Syria. Tabarov was caught by the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani in July 2015 and killed.

As the Taliban began to make gains in Afghanistan late last year, a thousand Ansarullah fighters arrived from their sojourn with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. When Darwaz fell to the Taliban in November 2020, it was these Ansarullah fighters who took the lead.

Tajikistan’s Rahmon has made it clear that he fears a spillover of Ansarullah into his country, dragging it back into the war of the 1990s. The fear of that war has allowed Rahmon to remain in power, using every means to squash any democratic opening in Tajikistan.

Regional Balm

In mid-September, Dushanbe hosted the 21st meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Council of the Heads of State. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan had several talks with Rahmon about the situation in Afghanistan. As the war of words escalated, Khan called Rahmon on October 3 to ask that the tension be reduced. Russia and China have also called for restraint.

It is unlikely that guns will be fired across the border; neither Dushanbe nor Kabul would like to see that outcome. But both sides are using the tension for their own ends—for Rahmon, to ensure that the Taliban will keep Ansarullah in check, and for the Taliban, for Rahmon to recognize their government.

https://citizentruth.org/why-the-worlds ... an-border/

[theluckycountry]

Apart from Islamists and some intellectuals, most Tajik citizens support President Emomali Rahmon, a former communist from the Soviet era,

Tajikistan is a significant country in Central Asia by virtue of its geographic location bordering China and Afghanistan and its ample water and other resources, but it faces ethnic and clan schisms, deep poverty, poor governance, and other severe challenges. Tajikistan was one of the poorest of the new states that gained independence at the end of 1991 after the break-up of the former Soviet Union. The new country was soon plunged into a devastating civil conflict between competing regional and other interests that lasted until a peace settlement in 1997. Former state farm chairman Imomaliy Rahmon rose to power during this period and was reelected president after the peace settlement as part of a power-sharing arrangement. He was reelected in 2006. His rule has been increasingly authoritarian and has been marked by ongoing human rights abuses, according to many observers.

The civil war had further set back economic development in the country. The economy recovered to its Soviet-era level by the early 2000s, and GDP had expanded several times by the late 2000s, despite setbacks associated with the global economic downturn. Poverty remains widespread, however, and the infrastructure for healthcare, education, transportation, and energy faces steep developmental needs, according to many observers. The country continues to face problems of political integration, perhaps evidenced in part by recent violence in eastern Tajikistan. The country also faces substantial threats from terrorism and narcotics trafficking from Afghanistan.

The United States has been Tajikistan's largest bilateral donor, budgeting $988.57 million of aid for Tajikistan (FREEDOM Support Act and agency budgets) over the period from FY1992 through FY2010, mainly for food and other humanitarian needs. Budgeted foreign assistance for FY2012 was $45.1 million, and the Administration requested $36.4 million for FY2014 (these FY2012 and FY2014 figures exclude most Defense and Energy Department programs; data for FY2013 are not yet available).

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, Tajikistan seemed to be willing to cooperate with the United States, but hesitated to do so without permission from Moscow. However, Tajikistan had long supported the Afghan Northern Alliance's combat against the Taliban. Perhaps after gauging Russia's views, Tajikistan soon offered use of Tajik airspace to U.S. forces, and some coalition forces began to transit through Tajik airspace and airfields. During a January 2009 visit, the then-Commander of the U.S. Central Command reached agreement with President Rahmon on the land transit of goods such as construction materials to support military operations of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. While most land transport along this Northern Distribution Network traverses Uzbekistan to final destinations in Afghanistan, Tajikistan serves as an alternative route for a small percentage of supplies. In March 2012, the land transit of some ISAF material out of Afghanistan through Tajikistan began.

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-594.html

[Newfie]

Thanks,
I will try to find time to read through that.

[Newfie]

And another viewpoint.

https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/02/unr ... for-russia

Hundreds of men stormed an airport in Dagestan over the weekend, chanting antisemitic slogans and looking for Israelis arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv.
The violent disarray - labelled by some as a “pogrom” - happened in the North Caucasus region, where anger over the conflict in Gaza is running high.
Israel's ambassador to Moscow blamed Sunday night's unrest on extremist elements resulting from ″indoctrination″ in the Muslim-majority Republic of Dagestan. But he said overall there is no antisemitism “on an organised level” in Russia.
Ambassador Alexander Ben Zvi said around 30 Israeli nationals on board the plane spent the night at a VIP suite at the airport, before being taken by helicopter to another nearby airport to continue their journeys.
“The North Caucasus are definitely pro-Palestine,” analyst Harold Chambers told Euronews.
Partly this is down to religious affinity, with people in the region wanting to stand in solidarity with fellow Muslims, but he added there is also a "shared notion of struggle against oppression in some circles."
Dagestan has experienced secessionist unrest during the 20th and 21st centuries, with the Moscow-backed regime accused of "serious human rights violations". Palestinians, meanwhile, say they suffer under brutal Israeli occupation.

While antisemitism was "not necessarily" rife in the North Caucasus, Chambers said a flood of misinformation and emotionally charged online content around the bloodshed in Gaza has made positions much more extreme in recent weeks.
A baseless claim that Jewish refugees were onboard an arriving plane from Israel helped spark Sunday's riot at Makhachkala airport, while regional Telegram channels have pumped out streams of images of Palestinian children hit by Israeli strikes.
A headache for Putin
Alongside the Israel-Hamas war, Russia-Israel relations specialist Мilàn Czerny told Euronews the disorder should be put in a regional context.
Since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, he said dissent had been building in the North Caucasus. First against the partial mobilisation announced in September and then protests against mounting socio-economic difficulties.
“Increasingly in Dagestan the economic situation is getting more difficult and there is rising religious radicalisation," he explained.
“The protest did take place in a vacuum.”
Unrest in Russia's Caucasus region is a worry for Vladimir Putin, who blamed the West and Ukraine for stirring up trouble over social media - something Washington dismissed on Wednesday as "absurd".
People in the crowd walk shouting antisemitic slogans at an airfield of the airport in Makhachkala, Russia, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023.
People in the crowd walk shouting antisemitic slogans at an airfield of the airport in Makhachkala, Russia, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023.AP/Copyright 2023 The AP. All rights reserved.
The Russian president previously defeated an Islamist insurgency there and is keen to ensure peace at home ahead of elections next year.
"This is absolutely not a good sign for Putin’s regime," said Chambers, suggesting images of "uncontrolled public violence", crowds overwhelming police and a major airport being overrun were not good for optics.
He points to two competing interpretations of the disarray. One that it reflects a failure by a perhaps more sympathetic security service, which appeared to take a lax approach to protestors. The other is that, possibly hollowed out by the Ukraine war, they could not effectively control the mob.
While cautioning against thinking the Russian Federation was going to "break up", Czerny echoed this second argument, saying the riot showed the "capacity of the Russian state was diminishing and it is, to some extent, losing control."

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“Many lines that could not have been crossed before are now being crossed in Russia.”
Russia announced earlier this week it was tightening security in the region, with Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov saying rioters would be shot dead if they failed to heed warnings.

Trouble ahead for Russia's dwindling Jewish community
Beyond the region, concerns about antisemitism in Russia are rising.
As the Ukraine war grinds on, Czerny said Moscow is driving up intolerance towards Jewish people and Russia's other religious and ethnic minorities amid efforts to boost nationalism and deflect attention from the invasion's grim economic fallout.
"Rather than a distinct anti-Semitic campaign, it is part of the Kremlin's discourse. Socio-economic conditions in Russia are tough right now, so they need people to blame. They blame the US. They blame NATO. But people get tired of it. They are sick of hearing the same thing... so they [the Russian state] need to find someone else to blame."

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Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in May 2022 compared Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Adolf Hitler, who he said “also had Jewish blood.”
State television in Russia has also accused prominent Ukrainian politicians of being secretly Jewish, while Russian-backed leaders in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions have claimed Jews were behind Ukarine's 2014 Maidan revolution that toppled pro-Russia leader Viktor Yanukovych.
“What we are seeing in the last year and a half of crisis is Russia returning to one of most historical patterns - antisemitism," added Czerny.
Antisemitism was a significant issue during the Soviet Union, especially under Stalin and later Brezhnev, with Jews facing institutional and societal racism.
Ex Russian president Dmitry Medvedev receives a book during his visit at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem's Old City, Nov. 10, 2016.
Ex Russian president Dmitry Medvedev receives a book during his visit at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem's Old City, Nov. 10, 2016.Dan Balilty/Copyright 2016 The AP. All rights reserved.
Some 165,000 Jews lived in Russia in 2019, making them the sixth-largest Jewish community outside of Israel at the time, according to the Berman Jewish Data Bank.

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However, in August, the Jewish Agency said 20,500 had fled the country, with the spectre of historical persecution likely looming large.
Czerny added that many of Russia’s Jews tend to be more critical of the invasion, "buying less into Putin's narrative".
In Dagestan itself, most Jews left during the vicious wars of the 1990s as the restive North Caucasus tried to break away from Russia.
For those that remain inside the country, Czerny said "when Jews see this pogrom happening and the lack of state response they feel fearful."
"It's scary."

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But it wasn't always this way. Studies show that, under Putin, antisemitism decreased over the last two decades in Russia, following a surge in the 1990s.
In a Levada Center poll, for instance, 45% of Russians said they had a positive attitude toward Jews in 2021, up from 22% in 2010.
With the airport riot highlighting that things can easily get out of control, Czerny suggested the state may ease up on its antisemitism, though it also may not.
However, he warned: “When you take antisemitism out of the box, it is harder to put it back in. As the nationalistic element gets stronger in Russia, people feel emboldened by the state’s anti-Semitic statements.
“It can only grow from now.”