Kyrgyz newspaper Vecherniy Bishkek
November 2
zbek warlord Juma Namangoniy is angling to stage a return to his
former base in the Tajik Pamirs, according to the Kyrgyz newspaper Vecherniy
Bishkek. It said that, while some of his former allies are now too
involved in business dealings to help him, there are plenty of other
"irreconcilables" who will. The paper also quoted military sources in
Tajikistan as saying that Namangoniy is now part of the Taleban's
senior command. It saw his possible return to Tajikistan as a sign that the
Taleban plans to use the country as a support base in the war against
US-led forces, rather like the mojahedin used Pakistan against Soviet
forces. The following is the text of the article published on 2
November.
Representatives of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [IMU] are holding talks with Tajik field commanders on the possibility of returning their detachments to Tajikistan.
It looks as if the darkest predictions of the Central Asian special services on how the situation in the region could develop are coming true in the recent actions of the IMU military leader, [Juma] Namangoniy. Previously, power-wielding agencies did not rule out that under certain circumstances Namangoniy and his people could return from Afghanistan to bases in Tajikistan. After this, the Uzbek and Kyrgyz military can predict the subsequent moves of the IMU very readily by recalling what happened in 1999-2000 [when fighters invaded Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan].
According to Vecherniy Bishkek data obtained from informed sources in Dushanbe, Namangoniy has recently started making active contact with people who were previously Tajikistan's most important field commanders and who are now government officials. Their telephone conversations deal with only one thing. Namangoniy asks his former comrades-in-arms to allow and help him to return to bases he knows well in the Tajik Pamirs area. A former Tajik opposition military leader has confirmed to journalists that he has held talks of this kind with Namangoniy. This former mojahedin leader asserts that in this instance the IMU leader met with a categorical refusal. Moreover, the Uzbek military commander was warned that he would be fired on if he crossed the Afghan-Tajik border.
It is known that Namangoniy called the former defence minister of the Islamic opposition of Tajikistan Mirzo Ziyo (Jaga). According to some reports, Ziyo also refused to allow his old friend access to bases in the Pamirs. Independent experts in Dushanbe believe that, on the whole, the leaders of the former United Tajik Opposition do not want the Uzbek opposition figure to put in another appearance in Tajikistan. The opposition leaders are simply tired of being at the epicentre of military and political fighting. Apart from that, over the last few years many of them have launched profitable businesses and various "nice little earners", and the last thing they want now is to have to exchange the business suits they have got used to for battle fatigues.
In addition, the top ranks of the opposition are not very pleased that their former comrade-in-arms has become close to the Taleban movement. It is one thing to overthrow the secular authority in Uzbekistan, of which the Tajik mojahedin are not very fond, but quite another openly to associate with a movement which is viewed ambiguously by the Islamic world.
Different moods prevail in certain circles of the middle and lower ranks of the former United Tajik Opposition. Namangoniy proved himself to be a loyal and uncompromising ally of the Tajik field commanders in their fight against Rahmonov's government during the civil war in Tajikistan. The old front-line fraternity and Namangoniy's ongoing fight against "infidels" still make his personality unbelievably popular with Tajik "hawks".
Evidence of this is provided by a recent meeting of former field commanders from the Qarotegin area which took place in the Komarow gorge in Gharm. According to informed sources in Dushanbe, Namangoniy's and mullah Abdullo's emissaries also attended it. The latter is the most odious figure among Tajikistan's current irreconcilables. He fought against the government in Komsomolobod District. He recently took himself off to Afghanistan when his former comrades-in-arms hit out at him.
The Komarow meeting discussed actions by the irreconcilable Tajik opposition in the light of the present situation in Afghanistan. Some of the speakers said that they had talked with Namangoniy by phone the day before. The latter called on his Tajik counterparts to consolidate in the face of the threat posed by the USA and its allies to the Islamic world. At the meeting, the former UTO field commanders decided to put the territory under their control at the disposal of "their brother in arms and in faith" (read: for Namangoniy and his detachments if they withdraw from Afghanistan). One of the participants in the meeting expressed confidence that "Namangoniy will come here anyway, his envoys say this all the time".
The promises of "the irreconcilables" to accept and to provide for Namangoniy are not mere words. A number of Districts in the Qarotegin area of Tajikistan still have white, or rather green, spots [on the map]. Former UTO commanders still hold power here. At one time, following the signing of the inter-Tajik peace agreement in Moscow, they underwent an official "cleansing" ritual, in other words, were reintegrated into Tajikistan's power-wielding structures but "forgot nothing and learnt nothing". Thus, Namangoniy has every chance of successfully digging into Qarotegin's mountainous areas and continuing the fight against both the Northern Alliance and US ground forces should the West conduct a land operation in Afghanistan.
According to military sources in Tajikistan, Namangoniy has now become part of the higher military command of the Taleban. With about 9,000 fighters under his command, he organized the defence of the town of Taloqan (Takhar Province). Namangoniy's fighters include Chechens, Uighurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and also about 200 Tajiks. It is interesting that at one time their parents sent these Tajik lads to learn Islam in Pakistan. During their studies the Tajiks had a thorough brainwashing, and instead of going back home they joined the Taleban detachments. According to military experts in Tajikistan, if anti-Taleban ground operations are successful and the towns of Taloqan and Mazar-e Sharif are captured, the Taleban leadership may send some of their forces, primarily IMU detachments, to the Afghan [province of] Badakhshan.
Here these people will easily cross into Tajikistan over the poorly guarded Qala-e Khumb section of the border. Experts believe that this will not be a panicky or disorganized withdrawal by the defeated. It is much more likely to be a planned regrouping of Taleban forces to wage a partisan war against the Northern Alliance and American soldiers. Veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war among the Taleban well remember the war tactics used against the limited Soviet military contingent which, in their opinion, resulted in the Soviets being driven out of Afghanistan. Having suffered a number of defeats at the hands of Soviet troops in the first months of the war, the mojahedin divided their forces into numerous groups each containing a few dozen people.
Every group had a set amount of food and arms including large-calibre machine-guns to protect them against aircraft forced to operate in the mountains very close to the ground, which made them extremely vulnerable. At the same time the border areas of Pakistan served as a base for recuperation, medical treatment and rearming for the mojahedin. History will repeat itself if the Western allies dare to launch ground operations. The Taleban, who are not restricted by military infrastructure, depots, airfields and so on, will leave the towns and split into small groups.
This time areas of Tajikistan not under central government control could be used as a supply base. So, the return of the IMU to Tajikistan will give the Taleban several advantages at once. First, the Taleban will remove some of their forces from direct attack by the USA and its allies and preserve them as a reserve force for better times to come. Second, when Namangoniy appears in Tajikistan the Taleban, in the person of the IMU military leader, will inevitably unite with a number of uncompromising Tajik commanders and with extremists from the entire region as a whole. Thirdly, Juma Namangoniy remembers well the road to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and most likely will try for the third time to establish an Islamic Khaliphate in the Fergana valley. All these factors are well in line with the strategic task of the Kabul administration which is to expand the geography of jihad up to at least a regional level at the first stage, if not the world.
Kabul, like Washington and London, is firmly convinced that this war is a serious and long-term one.