For all purposes, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is on the retreat. With little presence back home and the failing parent, Wilayat Khorasan, fast sliding into irrelevance, the future of Uzbeks is in a quandary
The release of the kidnapped high-profile Pakistanis, Shahbaz Taseer (son of slain Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer) and Ali Haider Gilani (son of former Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani), has an inexplicable Uzbek link that begs the question on Uzbek presence and its role in the restive hinterland of Pakistan. Shahbaz confirmed being captive in the lawless Waziristan’s Meer Ali area for four torturous years, under the captivity of the shadowy Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Even the kidnapping of Warren Weinstein in 2011, the American contractor from Model Town in lahore, is attributed to the IMU cadres who abducted Warren to the Shawal area of north Waziristan. The footprint of the Uzbeks was also present in the December 2012 Peshawar Airport attack and later in June 2014, in the brazen and deadly attack on the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi which left 39 people dead. The presence of Uzbek fighters in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and even in the Iraq-Syria theatre has baffled many as they have virtually no presence in their own native Uzbekistan.
What started in 1998 as a regional Islamist movement by Tahir Yuldashev and Juma Namangani, to overthrow the dictatorial Government of President Islam Karimov (in chair since independence in 1991) and establish a puritanical Islamic State with sharia’h laws, has morphed into a wider pan-Islamic platform that posits itself against the West, the Russians, the Governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In keeping times with the recent realignments in the Islamic militancy movements, it has gone against its original benefactor, the Taliban and its affiliate groups like the Haqqani network. Instead, it has gone ahead and publicly pledged allegiance to the rival Islamic State and postulates as an affiliate of the same in the region.
Pushed out from the Central Asian region, they initially found succor in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region and were instrumental in carrying out audacious attacks on the Nato/Afghan and Pakistani troops and establishments. The Taliban-Al Qaeda combine were impressed with the doughtiness of the Uzbeks and soon, Uzbek fighters were seen to be participating actively with Osama bin laden’s famed 055 Brigade — so much so that IMU strongman Juma Namangani was appointed as the Deputy Defence Minister of the Taliban Government in Kabul.
The presence of Uzbek cadres and IMU camps (also known as jundallah) provided the Taliban a brilliant counterfoil and degree of deniability vis-à-vis the Chinese pressures on the contentious presence of Uighur militants by simply merging the Uighurs with the Uzbek cadres in the camps in the northern Afghanistan region.
Post-September 11, 2001, dynamics in Afghanistan changed dramatically and the Taliban were ousted from Kabul and the Uzbeks retreated into the tribal areas of Pakistan where they were initially hosted by Tehrik-i-Taliban elements and later by the Haqqani network.
Brazen activities of the Uzbeks in Pakistan did not go unnoticed and the Pakistan Army specifically went behind the IMU cadres, in pointed operations like operation Zarb e Azb. Pressure from the official Pakistani establishment aside, the Uzbeks also had an uncomfortable settlement in the traditional belt of the Pashtun heartland where they invariably ended up offending the sensibilities and cultures of the ultra-conservative Talibanised landscape.
However, the move to shift loyalties from the Taliban to the Afghanistan branch of the IS, Wilayat Khorasan was a turning point and double-whammy for the Uzbek/IMU cadres, as even the Taliban went aggressively against the Uzbeks to squeeze them out in bloody battles that threatened the existential relevance of the Uzbeks in the region.
Now, the Uzbeks are on the back foot and so the IMU has widened its cadre base by opening doors to disgruntled Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Uighurs, Chechens, Arabs and even Westerners to replenish its ranks. Often, with Soviet military background and higher education, Uzbek fighters were famed for their battle-hardiness, brutality and effectiveness that made them the strongest and the largest non-Arab, foreigner group operating in the area.
Now, with multiplicity of enemies (including friend-turned-foes), they are getting squeezed out into the larger Middle Eastern war of pan-Islamic resurgence in Iraq-Syria.
Still, the principal catchment area for the new recruits remains the Fergana valley in Uzbekistan, which is the most religiously radicalised region in Central Asia which faces ready persecution by the strong-arm tactics of Uzbekistan's, Islam Karimov Government. The IMU numbers are estimated to vary from hundreds to a few thousan. However, their punt on aligning with the IS in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region has weakened their current position as the expected repeat of the Iraq-Syria experience and conversion rate to IS control has not happened and the Uzbeks have the ominous position of facing the Taliban, the Afghan/Nato forces and the Pakistani forces, all at the same time.
The Taliban onslaught on IMU cadres in Zabul area of Afghanistan was back-breaking with hundreds of IMU fighters slaughtered by the Taliban. Previous attempts on the life of the maverick Afghan warlord, General Rashid Dostum (of Uzbek ethnicity) has also closed the doors of IMU cadres from a possible integration or merger with the unpredictable General Rashid Dostum’s Uzbek ranks.
For all practical purposes, the IMU is on the retreat and badly weakened (explaining the release of the kidnapped Pakistani hostages). With little presence back home in Uzbekistan and the failing parent, Wilayat Khorasan, (IS in Afghanistan, still numbering around 7000 fighters), fast sliding into irrelevance with multiple and successive defeats by the Afghan troops and the Taliban — the future of the IMU Uzbeks is in the quandary.
The Uzbeks now run the risk to splintering irreversibly from a composite IMU force to reckon with. The only option of becoming individual mercenaries or bodyguards of various militant leaders (given their fighting skills and desperation to survive) will end the bloody and mysterious trail of Uzbek footprints in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
(The writer is a former lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Puducherry, and a military veteran)