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Looking at Uzbekistan's relations with Tajikistan, Russia and the USA in the light of radical Islamic groups' activities in the Central Asian region, journalist Sanobar Shermatova suggests that no country in the West can give Uzbekistan such security guarantees as those which have been provided to Uzbekistan by its partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. She says that no U-turn is expected in Uzbek foreign policy in favour of the West. The following is an excerpt from Sanobar Shermatova's article entitled "The brand that is dying down", published by the Russia-based Fergana.ru information agency website on 8 February; subheadings as published:
The recent arrests of Islamic militants in southern Kyrgyzstan, reports from [Pakistan's] Waziristan on their supporters' clashes with local tribes, and the January statements of the leader of the Islamic Movement, Tohir Yoldoshev, call into question the viability of the organization [the Islamic Movement], which threatened the security of Uzbekistan throughout the 1990s.
Does the movement which proclaimed the idea of creating an Islamic state in Central Asia have a future? The organization's prospects cannot be understood without taking into account the circumstances of the movement's creation, as well as those who promoted this "brand".
Taking care of those "on the loose"
An active member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [IMU], Abdulhay Yoldoshev, was detained in southern Kyrgyzstan several days ago. Investigators believe that the detainee, together with other members of the group, took part in attacks on a Tajik border post and a Kyrgyz customs checkpoint on 12 May 2006.
[Passage omitted: background]
Back in the autumn of 2006, Busurmankul Tabaldiyev, chairman of the National Security Service (currently, the State Committee for National Security) said that, as a result of three operations conduced in southern Kyrgyzstan "leaders of the terrorist organization that was preparing actions in Central Asia were eliminated". If that is so, then the recent arrests can be seen as action aimed at taking care of the remaining militant group members on the loose.
Retaliation on the part of the IMU is unlikely today. The current political situation in the region is quite different...