Associated Press
October 22
n its fight against terror, the United States will find few allies as staunch as Shoazim Minovarov.
A top monitor of religious education in this overwhelmingly Muslim former Soviet republic, Minovarov's message about the U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan is clear, and his government committee is firmly taking it to the Uzbek people.
``The Taliban don't even have the right to pronounce the sacred word jihad,'' Minovarov said Friday. ``We are grateful that Americans are sacrificing their own lives and helping us and the world.''
The government is sending Islamic prayer leaders to factories and schools to explain that the people behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks are not true Muslims.
The campaign, launched after the terror attacks on the United States, aims to shore up support for the government's decision to host U.S. forces on Uzbek soil. It's also part of Uzbekistan's larger crackdown on its own Islamic opposition.
The crackdown is so widespread, Uzbek authorities have designated ``Defenders of the People'' in each neighborhood who monitor and report suspicious activity - especially anyone who seems to be visiting the mosque more frequently.
In the past, the U.S. government has warned Uzbekistan about the severity of such measures, saying they might anger citizens and push them toward extremism.
The Committee on Religious Affairs, where Minovarov serves as deputy chairman, is a holdover from the days when Uzbekistan was one of 15 republics of the totalitarian Soviet Union.
``This is a Soviet-style campaign,'' said Acacia Shields, Central Asia researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch. ``It's systematic and it ... does not start or stop with Sept. 11.''
There is almost no public resistance to the government's support of the U.S.-led attacks - perhaps because Uzbeks who disagree risk imprisonment.
Diplomats estimate that there are between 5,000 and 10,000 dissidents in Uzbek prisons, most of them members of radical Islamic groups that call for the overthrow of Uzbekistan's secular government.
The most militant of the radical groups, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, is widely believed to have ties to Osama bin Laden, the leading suspect in the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The group, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, is believed to have several hundred members in Afghanistan.
``The members of this group are fanatics,'' Minovarov said. ``These fanatics are capable of terrible acts, as happened unfortunately in the United States.''
There are no opinion polls in Uzbekistan and many people are reticent to speak freely. But a brief survey of Uzbeks revealed little of the opposition to U.S. raids that is common in many Muslim countries.
``The average Uzbek, if he understands what is going on and the danger to his own security, supports what is going on,'' Minovarov said.
Many Uzbeks expressed hope that the Uzbek militants would be targeted. The militants are blamed for a series of 1999 bombings in Tashkent.
``Terrorism is bad for every nation,'' said Abdumalik Akramov, a water company worker standing near the city's main market, where villagers sell persimmons, apples, pickled fish and round flat bread. ``The fact that America is bombing them is good for everyone.''
Murad, a railway worker who refused to give his last name, said he hopes the fight will finally bring stability to neighboring Afghanistan.
``If your neighbors live a more normal life, you'll live a more normal life too,'' he said.
Uzbekistan has agreed to open its airspace and one of its air bases to U.S. aircraft and troops. About 1,000 members of the Army's 10th Mountain Division have deployed to an Uzbek air base at Khanabad, about 90 miles north of the Afghan border.
For Fatikh Hairullin, a 50-year-old rescue worker who helped in the cleanup of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion, the world's worst nuclear disaster, there was only one thought.
``I am for bombing the Taliban, but I feel sorry for the children who are suffering there,'' he said. ``My one request to America: Please don't touch the civilians.''