Taliban 'invite' 10,000 Uzbeks to Helmand

By Massoud Ansari, Sunday Telegraph

Last Updated: 12:55am GMT 25/03/2007

Islamic militants linked to Osama bin Laden have been offered a safe haven by the Taliban in Afghanistan, bringing them into conflict with British troops patrolling the lawless province of Helmand.

Uzbek gunmen, who fought a series of bloody battles last week with Pakistani tribesmen in the border region of Waziristan, where they had been living, have been told they should join the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan instead.

The move raises the prospect of a major upsurge in violence in Helmand, where 43 British soldiers have been killed in clashes with militants over the last five

(Map of Afghanistan and surrounding region)

years.

The group of around 10,000 Uzbeks are led by Tahir Yuldashev, a close associate of the al-Qaeda terrorist chief, who is believed to be hiding out in the mountainous border area with his chief henchman Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The members of the Islamic Movement Union of Uzbekistan fell out with their Pakistani hosts after accusing some tribal leaders of acting as agents of the Pakistani government, which is under huge pressure from the US to crack down on Islamic militants. Pakistan government officials said that nearly 160 people, including 130 Uzbeks, were killed in the battle.
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Taliban fighters intervened to broker a ceasefire but local officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that neither side is likely to back down. Taliban sources have revealed that they have offered the Uzbeks safe passage into Afghanistan in order to bring an end to the violence.

The militant group are wanted by the Uzbek government of President Islam Karimov and cannot return to their own country.

Lateef Afridi, a tribal leader and former national assembly member from the Frontier province, who is privy to details of the discussions, said: "These tribesmen are quite determined to flush them out. Given that these Uzbeks cannot be extradited back to their own country because they are all wanted there, one way they are considering to accommodate them is to send them to Afghanistan."

Mr Afridi said the Taliban felt compelled to give the Uzbeks a way out because if the battle continued between the local tribesmen and the foreign fighters, the Taliban elements would have to choose which side to back, unleashing further bloodshed. Another source added: "Both the sides are led by highly trained militants and if the fighting is not stopped, there will be massive killings."

A second tribal leader said the local and Afghan Taliban forces had already approached the Uzbeks and asked them to continue their jihad in Taliban-dominated areas in Afghanistan, in a bid to "reinvigorate their campaign of violence against Nato troops". They have been offered safe passage to either Kunar, Paktia or Helmand, where British troops are braced for a spring offensive from the Taliban.

Britain has announced plans to raise the UK military presence in Afghanistan to more than 7,000 troops. But the presence of a new wave of heavily armed guerrilla fighters is likely to leave troops stretched further and strengthen calls for an even greater military presence.

For Pakistan, forcing out the Uzbeks has the advantage of undermining support for Osama bin Laden.

His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been spotted in Waziristan several times. If the local tribesmen succeed, it will deny bin Laden one more safe haven for his associates, according to one western diplomat.

The Uzbeks are believed to have killed more than 1,500 local tribesmen in the past two years and are blamed for kidnapping others.

Mr Afridi said: "The partial ceasefire was achieved only for a time being, when the Taliban leaders intervened, but it did not give both the parties enough time to carry out the dead. The corpses and broken limbs of the dead are scattered all over the area."

Taking Up the Slack in Central Asia

A few years back, European relations with Central Asian states were fairly quiet. And, at least as far as appearances went, the US, due to its close relationship with Uzbekistan, seemed to be less principled or more pragmatic (depending on your point of view) compared to Europe. RFE/RL today carries a story that shows just how pragmatic Europe (or at least the German-speaking parts of it) is getting about Central Asia. In fact, the focus of the story, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, is sounding quite a bit like defenders of US policy toward Uzbekistan from a few years ago.

“I think it’s not a matter of securing the energy resources only — it’s really a matter of engaging with these [Central Asian] countries,” Ferrero-Waldner told Reuters. “If we don’t engage with these countries, these countries will turn eastwards and turn to Russia and China. And I think it’s highly important that [Central Asians] also look very strongly towards Europe.”

That sounds quite a bit like arguments that I made about US policy toward Uzbekistan a couple years back, and I think it is fairly safe to assume that though Ferrero-Waldner has engagement with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan mostly in mind, arguments that EU engagement will produce marginal improvements over the status quo must most vigorously be applied toward convincing European states and publics to agree to reaching out to Turkmenistan and especially Uzbekistan.

Ever since Andijon, Western policy in the region has been a disjointed mess. The US has shifted its focus toward Kazakhstan, sought to maintain access to Manas airfield in Kyrgyzstan, and that is about it. Europe, with the exception of Germany, has also more or less been in a holding pattern since mid-2005. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan has been taking daily steps to overtake Turkmenistan as the universally-recognized most repressive state in the region. Is it time for someone in the West to pursue a comprehensive regional policy and reengage with Uzbekistan?

The RAND Corporation’s findings on US security assistance to Uzbekistan indicate that repackaged engagement and assistance to Uzbekistan can bear some fruit. Isolation has not accomplished anything, and any policy aimed at the entire region cannot exclude the country where nearly half the region’s population lives. If John Negroponte’s characterization of Central Asian governments as unreliable is any indication, the US is not terribly interested in either renewing ties with Uzbekistan or breathing new life into its regional policy, leaving Europe to take up the slack for the West.

Germany is at the fore in encouraging European engagement with Central Asian governments, and it is facing an uphill battle.

Germany argues engagement is the way to promote rights, but activists were concerned when it argued successfully against toughening sanctions on Uzbekistan last year and lobbied — inconclusively — for Kazakhstan to take the helm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2009.

Analysts say Germany will not find it easy to persuade all its 26 EU partners to follow an “interest-driven” policy.

Reuters packages activists’ concerns as being about German interest-driven rather than idealism-driven foreign policy. The Western experience with Uzbekistan over the past five years provides a good deal of empirical evidence about the merits and demerits of interest-driven versus idealism-driven foreign policy. Interest-driven policy accomplished little. But idealism, even though it has not been executed as I imagine most idealists would prefer, has not accomplished anything. Germany apparently feels that a little is better than nothing, especially when Europe’s interests in Central Asia are so strong.

Germany could, I suppose, go it alone if it wished. But one of the biggest problems with Western policy in Central Asia (and between agencies in US policy) has been not just that the region has rarely been treated as one region so much as a collection of neighboring states but also that Western states have not been on the same page. Though having the West as a whole on the same page would be preferable, a comprehensive EU policy would be a great achievement, and working together stands a far better chance of achieving (probably still marginal) results. Russian gas games prove to Europe that it needs Central Asia. And Central Asian governments know they do better with multiple partnerships. Developments in much of Central Asia over the last year-and-a-half have made the future look dim, and at least part of that is due to the West’s absence. Perhaps it is time for a second round of close relations.

Posted by Nathan on January 16th, 2007
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