BACKGROUND: The Hizb-e Tehrir claims that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), previously believed to be aiming to overthrow Uzbek President Islam Karimov, also has similar pan-Central Asian ambitions. Islamic militancy remains the most potent threat to the five Central Asian Republics, even considering the threats posed to the region by the recent Taliban advances in northern Afghanistan, Russian attempts to reestablish a powerful military and political presence in the region, and their struggle to deal with the region’s dire economic recession, inflation and unemployment which is helping provide recruits for these Islamic movements. Having disallowed democracy and all opposition for the past decade, the autocratic Central Asian leaders now face a militant underground Islamic opposition that draws support from the Taliban as well as extremist Islamic groups in Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states.

The Hizb-e Tahrir, which has growing support in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan reflected by the increasing number of arrests of HT members by the internal security apparatus of these states, operates a highly secretive cell system which makes it difficult for the authorities to contain their spread. They have a vision of uniting Central Asia in an Islamic Caliphate - which would reestablish the idealized period of Islam just after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. A Hizb-e Tahrir leader, who was interviewed by the author recently in Central Asia said his movement was founded in Saudi Arabia in the 1950s and remained underground during the Soviet era. HT has now established thousands of five man cells across Central Asia to achieve its aims. It believes in peaceful change through a mass movement against the Central Asian regimes, but does not rule out the possibility of eventually having to take up arms if the repression against it continues.

The Hizb-e Tahrir, which draw inspiration from the conservative rather than modernist figures of the Jadid movement in 19th century Uzbekistan as well as the Wahabbi movement in Saudi Arabia, is virulently against Shia Muslims and Shi’ism, would expel all Jews from Central Asia and is opposed to US policies in the region. The HT says it admires the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and many HT members have fled to Afghanistan to seek sanctuary. Although it also admires the wanted Saudi terrorist Osama Bin Laden, it has no links with him. The HT say they have differences with the IMU as they do not believe in the guerrilla war being presently carried out by the IMU and suspect the IMU has contacts with both Russian and the Uzbek regimes. They also say they have support from within the Karimov regime which they claim is crumbling from within due to the acute economic hardships being faced by the population.

IMPLICATIONS: The Taliban have given sanctuary to between 2500-3000 heavily armed fighters from the IMU, which this summer and last year launched guerrilla attacks inside Uzbekistan in a bid to set up bases in the volatile Ferghana valley and topple President Karimov. This summer in order to reach Uzbek territory from their Afghan bases, the IMU fought pitched battles with the armed forces of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The IMU is being bankrolled by Afghanistan's drugs trade, Osama bin Laden and Islamic groups in Pakistan along with the Arab Gulf states. Its strength has grown from some 600 fighters who first came to Afghanistan in the spring of 1999 to nearly 3,000 now. It is recruiting widely from all the Central Asian and Caucasian ethnic groups - especially Chechens - as well as Uyghur Muslims from the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

In a bid to help the Karimov regime, the Clinton administration declared the IMU a terrorist organization on September 15. Hezbollah, the Party of God, is an even more extremist and secretive group well established in the Ferghana Valley. Hezbollah follows Saudi Arabia's strict Wahhabi sect and is funded by Saudi groups. None of these fundamentalist movements in Central Asia appear to take much inspiration from the historically moderate Islamic trends in Central Asia. They are all opposed to the Sufi traditions and 'Tariqahs' (Sufi Orders) in Central Asia. Likewise, they have little understanding or appreciation of the modernist trends within the 19th century Jadid movement, are opposed to religious minorities such as Shias and Jews who have lived for centuries in Central Asia and are highly restrictive on the role of women under Islam.

Hizb-e Tahrir, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan all appear to be pan-Islamicists with a vision of creating a new Ummah or community of believers in Central Asia rather than Islamic-nationalists who are aware of the enormous risks of trying to redraw the boundaries of the region and the acute ethnic tensions within Central Asia. They appear to draw more inspiration from the hardline Wahhabi and Deobandi Islamic traditions of Saudi Arabia and South Asia rather than Central Asia's own traditions. All these movements will continue to grow and expand their recruiting base, as long as the severe economic conditions in the Central Asian states persist and the regimes continue to refuse to carry out deep economic reforms.

CONCLUSIONS: The Central Asian regimes have jailed thousands of Islamic militants and many innocent citizens in a bid to halt the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, but the regimes harsh punitive measures have only added to public anger and frustration. According to Western human rights workers, some 4,000 IMU and HT supporters are in jail in Uzbekistan and hundreds more in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. President Karimov is fighting by juggling two fronts, on the one hand trying to control the spread of Islamic militancy, while on the other hand resisting Russian pressure to station troops in Uzbekistan and seeking support from the US, the West, China, Turkey and India.

The refusal by the Central Asian governments to implement democratic reforms or allow legal opposition parties and movements to operate will force dissidents to join underground Islamic movements. Such movements are the only visible opposition forces resisting these regimes. At the same time, the inability of these regimes to differentiate between moderate Islamic forces and ideas and more extreme ones allows for the revival of the moderate traditions of Islam in Central Asia. But the lumping of all believers under the category of ''extremist Wahhabis'' is severely damaging the credibility of these regimes.

AUTHOR BIO: Ahmed Rashid is the Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Daily Telegraph. He is the author of The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationlism?, as well as the recently published Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (Yale, 2000).

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