A new operation of the Pakistani army against the Taliban in South Waziristan launched on 17 October has exposed a threat to the nearby Central Asian states. Unlike in previous years when all fights were very cautious and the authorities preferred rather to negotiate with the militants, this time the Pakistani army is determined to fight until the last gun is fired. Offensive is carried out from three directions jointly by two divisions-their overall strength being some 30,000- plus aviation and artillery. The campaign is expected to last 2 months. Experts say the Pakistani Talibs have 10,000-12,000 troops. Shortly before the beginning of the operation, about 100,000 civilians had fled the region in fear of security.
The anti-Taliban operations launched in the valley of Swat in May 2009 forced some parts of foreign hirelings move to Central Asian states bordering with Afghanistan. This May a 100-men detachment led by the former field commander of the United Tajik Opposition Mullo Abdullo (Rakhimov) showed up in eastern Tajikistan. As a result of a special operation carried out by Tajik forces in order to fight drug production and trafficking, some militants from the detachment were killed. Location of Mullo Abdullo remains unknown. In late May an Uzbek check-point in Khanabad on the Kyrgyz border was attacked at night, and a few blasts later hit Andizhan. In July two operations were carried out in Southern Kyrgyzstan. All these incidents are linked with the return of some militants from the Afghan-Pakistan areas to Central Asia.
By autumn the situation in Uzbekistan worsened. The republic saw an outbreak of violent attacks aimed at high-ranking religious figures followed by a series of armed clashes and detentions of suspected criminals. According to Ferghana.ru news agency, a deputy director of Kukeldash medrese Abror Abrorov was killed on 16 July in Tashkent. On 31 July Chief Imam of Tashkent Anvar-kori Tursunov survived an assassination attack. His followers think the imam was assassinated for his criticism of radical Islamic organizations, including vakhabits and Hizbut Tahrir. On 9 August a member of the department to counteract terrorism and corruption in Uzbekistan, Khasan Asadov, also fell victim to religious extremism. In late August 16 vendors of the Parkentsky fair in Tashkent were detained on suspicion of assassinating Tursunov and involvement in 'Jihad' religious group. On 3 August a district criminal court in Kashkadaryinsky region began the hearings on the case involving 11 citizens of the town of Shakhrisabz and Kitabsk district charged with participating in the activities of 'Uzbekistan Islamic movement', 'Islamic Jihad' and 'Libyan Djamoat'. On 29 August three militants were killed during an operation in the Tashkent district of Kukcha-Darbaza after they refused to surrender. A spokesman for the Uzbekistan`s Prosecutor General`s Office, the killed militants had been involved in the aforementioned assassination attacks. Also, according to unofficial data, on 10 August a blast and a skirmish took place near the Uzbek Ministry of Defence building, and on 8 September there was an armed clash between the militants and the police in one of the Tashkent streets.
In October signs of political instability can be seen all across Central Asia. According to the Kyrgyz border guard service, late at night on 14 October an unidentified armed group, involving about 8 people, crossed the Kyrgyz border from Tadjikistan near the Kok-Tash check-point and vanished in the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan. They made resistance when the police tried to detain them. The next day the group were traced in the Tajik enclave of Vorukh. On 18 October the Tajik special task forces searched the enclave and the nearby Batkensk and Sogdyisk regions and in the town of Isfara found six militants, four of them were later killed in the skirmish. Four more members of the gang were detained on 19 October in Vorukh. Experts reported those were members of the 'Islamic movement of Uzbekistan'.
The exact number of militants from Central Asia who have been staying in the Tribe Zone (on the Afghan-Pakistan border) is yet unknown. In mid September western media reported some 5,000 Uzbek militants to be hiding in North and South Waziristan.
If the Pakistani army succeeds, a Russian experts V. Sotnikov believes the Uzbek militants will hardly manage to vanish among the locals like their Pushtun 'partners in crime' did in the Swat Valley. Sotnikov thinks they will be looking for shelter either in Afghanistan, where the US forces are waiting for them, or in small villages on the Afghan-Pakistani border. But in both situations it won`t be hard to notice such great number of militants. So they will probably try to continue their criminal activity at home.
Thus we`ll face a «real threat of growing Islamic sentiments and terror activity in Russia's southern borders - in Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan) and in Russia's North Caucasus (Chechnya, North Ossetia, Dagestan)».
Notably, we've been witnessing the gravest crime situation in Central Asia since this May, especially in Uzbekistan where the number of terror attacks and armed clashes have risen sharply in recent months. In case thousands of militants return to Uzbekistan, separate clashes may grow into a guerrilla war like the one during the civil war in Tajikistan.
