Free Republic

SNIPPET: The Supreme Court of Tatarstan found 12 activists of the Kazan division of the international terrorist organization Islamic Liberation Party (Hizb ut-Tahrir) guilty of extremism. "Seven men, including Tajik citizen Dzhurayev and six Russians, have received four to eight years in a penal colony," court press secretary Natalya Loseva told Interfax. Four other Kazan residents have received suspended sentences of three years and six months to five years in prison." SNIPPET: ""The accomplice Gimaliyev was found insane and is exempt from criminal liability. He will be forcibly treated," Loseva said."

SNIPPET: "A year after the events in Nookat shone a spotlight on the role of women in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) indicates that the Islamic organization might have thousands of women members in Kyrgyzstan. In its recent report, "Women and Radicalization in Kyrgyzstan," the ICG states that Hizb ut-Tahrir "may have up to 8,000 members" in the country, "perhaps 800 to 2,000 of them women."" SNIPPET: "Hizb ut-Tahrir first emerged in the region in the 1990s with the recruitment of members in Uzbekistan. Today the movement is banned in all of the countries...

AFGHANISTAN: PRESIDENT CLAIMS ISLAMIC MILITANTS USING HELICOPTERS TO MOVE INTO NORTHERN AREAS " Islamic militants operating in northern Afghanistan are being dropped in by helicopter, Afghan President Hamid Karzai says. The provincial governor of Kunduz added separately the fighters are members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. According to Karzai, militants used unidentified helicopters to move fighters into position along the border with Tajikistan over the past five months. The same technique may be used to transport men to the north-western frontier with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, he added."

Living With Osama bin Laden: First Wife Tells of Husband's Bid To Train His Sons As Suicide Bombers Daily Mail Reporter 12th October 2009 Osama bin Laden was a tyrant who trained his own children to be suicide bombers and murdered their pets, his first wife has revealed. In a new book about her time living with bin Laden, Najwa Ghanem has told how she gave birth to 11 of his 14 children because bin Laden said that Islam needed many warriors. And millionaire bin Laden would not allow any modern appliances in his home, even refusing his son medicine...

August 11, 2009 MEANWHILE, IN TAJIKISTAN Interfax reports on the recent conviction of five members of the Tablighi Jamaat "for making public calls for a forcible change of the constitutional system of Tajikistan, a crime enshrined by Article 304 of the Tajik Criminal Code." The individuals sentenced were identified as Tajiks Khidoyatullo Alimov, Zielukhak Khakdodov and Saidakram Khakdodov, and two Russian nationals, Nasriddin Murodov and Mahmud Makhmadzhodzhayev. Reuters and Interfax both report on the death of an alleged IMU activist outside of Dushanbe named Lutfullo Tursunov, while RFE/RL casts doubt on that report, instead saying that one Shavkat Yusufov was...

TWO BOMB BLASTS IN DUSHANBE, IMU SUSPECTED The explosions come ahead of a Pakistan, Afghan, Russian, Tajik security meeting.

Note: The following text is a quote: July 30, 2009 ANOTHER DEAD IMU DRUG RUNNER Both Reuters and AFP report the recent demise of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan activist Nemet Azizov in a firefight with Tajik forces in the Rasht valley. Mr. Azizov was allegedly involved in the production and/or trafficking of heroin produced from opium grown in nearby Afghanistan. Posted on 30 July 2009 @ 20:14 GMT

July 23, 2009 "THREE MILITANTS SEIZED IN TAJIKISTAN" SNIPPET: "AFP reports the capture in Tajikistan of three Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan activists recently arrived from Afghanistan."

State-run Chinese media say police have arrested 1,434 suspects in the deadly ethnic riots in the western Xinjiang region. Officials released no other details. The White House says it is deeply concerned over the deadly violence in and has called for restraint. Chinese officials say at least 156 people were killed and more than 800 hurt in riots between ethic Uighurs and police in Xinjiang. Monday's fighting grew out of what witnesses say was a peaceful anti-government protest by Uighurs Sunday. No one is sure what led the march to explode into violence. But Chinese officials accuse exiled Uighur groups...

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2009 – A meeting of chiefs of defense here re-emphasizes the shared commitments of Central Asia and the United States to security and stability in the region, the commander of U.S. Central Command said here today. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus told the defense chiefs from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan that the meeting will help all involved better address their common interests. Combating extremism and the spread of extremism from Afghanistan and Pakistan is at the top of the list of priorities, the general said. “[This means] that all of us have to...

Russia has intercepted an attempt by a group of naval officials to smuggle $18 million worth of anti-submarine missiles and aviation bombs from Russia to China, officials said on Wednesday. "A few days ago we sent material to start criminal proceedings against navy officials and some businessmen who brought 30 contraband anti-submarine missiles and 200 aviation bombs into Tajikistan for onward sale to China for $18 million," said Russia's chief military prosecutor, Sergei Fridinsky. "The ammunition was detained in Tajikistan," he told a meeting of prosecutors chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev. Tajikistan is a former Soviet republic that borders China...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2009 – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted today to close Manas Air Base, a key logistics hub for the U.S. military, but a senior Pentagon official said the base closure would not affect operations in Afghanistan. “[Manas Air Base] is an important base for operations in Afghanistan, but it’s not irreplaceable,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters here today. “If it’s not available to us, we’ll find other means.” Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev still must sign the bill for the eviction to be official. If he signs the bill, troops will have 180 days to withdraw, based on...

In poverty-stricken Tajikistan, the global financial crisis is measured in bags of flour. At least that is how Bibisoro Sayidova sees it, as she looks for ways to feed her five children, since her husband, a migrant worker in Russia, stopped receiving his wages this fall. Now he is loading large sacks of dried fruit in Moscow on faith. “Sometimes I cry when the kids don’t have socks or coats,” she said, mixing a stew of water, bread, onion and oil. “We’re still hoping he’ll get paid.” The financial crisis that is in full swing in the world’s developed countries...

A prominent Tajik cleric and politician has accused the country's education officials of misinterpreting many historical facts about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in Tajik schoolbooks. In an open letter to the Ministry of Education and numerous media interviews, Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda has said that the textbooks' authors have taken an "unprofessional, irrational, and sometimes insulting and offensive stance" toward Islam and Islamic values. Turajonzoda, who is a member of Tajikistan's upper house of parliament, said the textbooks portray the Prophet Muhammad as a creator of a new religion -- not as the messenger of God -- and suggest that...

THE FOILING OF AN Islamist terrorist plot this week in Germany is noteworthy for several reasons that may not have been obvious from the headlines. The first is the involvement of an ethnic Turk. On Tuesday, police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia seized three men identified as a Turk and two German converts to Islam (under German court rules, their full names were not released). While the activity of converts in terrorism is not new, the Turkish community in Germany has so far been free of the plague of religious extremism. Turkish and Kurdish immigrants to Germany and...

The parents of 7-year-old Maryam are sending her to a school run by the Iranian Embassy in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. She attends the Iranian school because, like many other Tajik girls who wear Islamic head scarves, Maryam wasn't allowed to enter her Tajik school when it opened last week. "I went to school on September 1, but [the teachers] didn't let me in," she says. "They told me to remove my head scarf. I didn't go to school anymore." Tajikistan's Education Ministry outlawed the hijab in schools and universities last year and also demands that its students wear special...

When Iran sought to strengthen its relations with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization earlier this year, it found a willing friend in Imomali Rahmon. The president of Tajikistan assured his hosts on a visit to Tehran in February that Iran “had a real possibility” to become a full member of the organization. Now, Rahmon has taken that pledge one step further. Earlier this month, the Tajik president sent a letter addressed to SCO heads of state. In it, according to Iranian Ambassador to Tajikistan Ali Asghar Sherdust, the president supported Iran’s possible bid for membership at the August SCO summit in...

Tajikistan's ancient Jewish community lost its only remaining synagogue in downtown Dushanbe, as authorities decided to tear down old buildings in the synagogue's neighborhood so that yet another presidential palace can be built. The one-story synagogue was located in the city center, where authorities have begun construction of the so-called Palace of the Nation -- a luxurious presidential complex complete with parks and fountains. For the city's several hundred Jews, the synagogue was both a place for religious services and a community center. Many of the Jews are elderly and poor, and the synagogue was a place where they could...

Stepping up a campaign to join a Eurasian security and economic bloc dominated by Russia and China, Iran is looking for allies within the organization to back its bid, but political analysts doubt it will succeed. Late last month, Iran secured the support of one of the members of the six-country Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Tajikistan, which later this year will host the bloc's annual summit. Established in its current form in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) comprises Russia, China, and four Central Asian states -- Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Together they control a large proportion of the non-Arab...

LONDON, Feb 28 (APP) :The United Kingdom has airlifted aid worth 1.5 million pounds (US $ 3 million) to support international relief efforts for the growing humanitarian crisis in the Central Asian State of Tajikistan hit by the severe wintry conditions and energy crisis. The funding will help provide essential items and services for those at risk by the severe winter temperatures and the energy crisis facing the country, the UK’s International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander said on Thursday. He said the Department for International Development (DFID) has organised two separate emergency airlifts to transport vital supplies including blankets, baby...

Tajikistan 'facing catastrophe' by Natalia Antelava BBC News, Dushanbe Tens of thousands in Tajikistan are already malnourished Tajikistan is in the grip of emergency food shortages, the UN's World Food Programme is warning. The deteriorating food situation is part of the energy crisis which hit the mountainous nation in the middle of its coldest winter for five decades. The cost of food has tripled in recent months, partially because of rising world prices. Some humanitarian agencies claim Central Asia's poorest nation is heading towards catastrophe. It's well below zero in Tajikistan, but most people have no electricity, no heating and...

Tajikistan's education minister has extended official strictures on personal and religious freedoms with an assault on deeply ingrained practices at one of the country's major institutions of Islamic learning. Less than a year after he effectively eliminated Islamic-style head scarves in public schools, Abdujabbor Rahmonov has ordered male students at the Islamic University of Tajikistan to don suits and ties and shave their beards, and he has vowed to introduce teacher uniforms there and ban head scarves, known as hijabs. It is the latest indication of the balancing act confronting Tajik officials who are outwardly keen to discourage unsanctioned religious...

DUSHANBE (AFP) - A strong blast shook a conference centre in Tajikistan's capital on Wednesday killing one person as a European Union-run conference was due to get under way. ADVERTISEMENT The explosion, witnessed by an AFP reporter, occurred at a conference centre located about 350 metres (yards) from the palace of President Emomali Rakhmon and also near a big hotel and the Uzbek embassy. Police said the dead man was a guard who had discovered a package while inspecting the site, where an international conference organized by the European Commission was to be held.

India faces eviction from Tajik military base Thursday, 20 September , 2007, 14:58 New Delhi: India is likely to be evicted from its sole, albeit fledgling, overseas military facility at Ayni air base near Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe under pressure from Russia, which is concerned over New Delhi's burgeoning ties with Washington. Senior military officials said the emerging possibility of India looking to Washington and other Western suppliers for military hardware was responsible for Russia "leveraging" its considerable influence with Tajikistan to try and terminate New Delhi's "loose arrangement" regarding Ayni if it declined to be "co-operative". India's refurbishment of the...

Tajik air base is ready, gives India its first footprint in strategic Central Asia Shishir Gupta Posted online: Sunday, February 25, 2007 NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 24:India's first ever air base in Central Asia at Ayni in Tajikistan is now ready and the Defence Ministry has sought a mandate from the Cabinet Committee on Security to begin operations. India refurbished the Ayni air base, 10 km north-east of Dushanbe, at the cost of over Rs 80 crore under a trilateral defence agreement with Tajikistan and Russia. With its runway extended, perimeter fencing secured and aircraft hangars built, the Ayni airbase is...

MIAMI - The Bush administration's decision to drop the "enemy combatant" label from alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla and prosecute him on civilian terror charges has not gone smoothly, with even the judge in the case raising questions about sketchy evidence and a vague indictment. Trial for Padilla - a former Chicago gang member once accused of planning to detonate a radioactive bomb - and two co-defendants was initially scheduled for early September. But it's now off until January and may be delayed further into 2007 if prosecutors file their expected appeal of U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke's dismissal of...

World briefing Irresistible rise of the dictators' club Simon Tisdall Tuesday June 6, 2006 Guardian Tony Blair's promotion of shared global values and inclusive institutions in his Georgetown speech last month took little account of the rise and rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Few may yet have heard of it. But out of the east comes a radically different paradigm for 21st-century international organisation, short on idealism and long on hard-headed self-interest. The "universal" principles of "liberty, democracy and justice" lauded by Mr Blair are hardly its driving force. Founded by China, the five-year-old SCO groups together like-minded authoritarian...

The leaders of Iran and Afghanistan arrive in Tajikistan today for talks with President Imomali Rakhmonov and other senior Tajik officials. Discussions at the trilateral summit should include trade and security issues. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and Rakhmonov will cover a lot of regional ground, but they also provide a reminder of the affinities among these three Persian-speaking countries. PRAGUE, July 25, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- President Ahmadinejad of Iran is due to launch his three-day Tajik visit with his arrival later today in the capital, Dushanbe. It is Ahmadinejad's first visit to Dushanbe since taking office...

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, July 10, 2006 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met here today with the Tajikistani president and defense officials in an effort to foster an ongoing military-to-military relationship between Tajikistan and the United States. Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmonov (left) welcomes U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, July 10 before the two met to discuss defense issues. Photo by Staff Sgt. Gary Hilliard, USA  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. "Tajikistan is an important Central-Asian country. ... They've been very cooperative in the global war on terror and helpful since almost the beginning," Rumsfeld told...

India to station MiG-29 fighter-bombers at Tajikistan base By Rahul Bedi, Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) India's first overseas military facility in Tajikistan is expected to become operational by the year-end as part of New Delhi's thrust into oil-rich Central Asia to meet its growing energy needs. The Indian Air Force (IAF) is to deploy a fleet of MiG-29 fighter-bombers at the airbase at Aini, 15 km from the Tajikistan capital Dushanbe. India's quasi-military Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is currently constructing three hangars at Aini, two of which will accommodate the 12 aircraft the IAF will deploy...

China, Russia welcome Iran into the fold M K Bhadrakumar April 18, 2006 The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO's decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15. Speaking in Beijing as recently as January 16, the organization's secretary general Zhang Deguang had been quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying:...

BEIJING. April 13 (Interfax-China) - The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit, due to be held on June 15 2006, will discuss the issue of renaming and reforming the organization's secretariat, said the SCO's Executive Secretary Zhang Deguang. "The Secretariat was set up at the organization's onset. The SCO has gone through significant change and development, which requires that the Secretariat be reorganized and renamed," Zhang said. The upcoming summit will also address the issue of granting the status of permanent members to individual observer states, at their request, he said. Regarding talks between the SCO defense ministers, set for the...

Two men attacked and stabbed a nine-year-old girl of mixed Russian and African heritage in St. Petersburg, seriously injuring her in an apparent xenophobic attack, officials said Sunday. The Saturday evening attack took place in an apartment building hallway and was the latest incident targeting foreigners or minorities in Russia's second-largest city. Aliu Tunkara, who heads a civic group for Africans in St. Petersburg, said the girl was returning home after a walk and had just entered the building when two men stabbed her. Alexander Klaus, an investigator with the city prosecutor's office, said in televised comments that during the...

Authorities in Central Asia suggest that an outlawed group responsible for terrorist attacks in the past poses a renewed threat in the region. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was thought to have been largely destroyed in the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan. But officials in Tajikistan have blamed several recent incidents on the IMU, and they say the group has been increasingly active since an uprising was suppressed in neighboring Uzbekistan eight months ago. The most recent mention by Tajik officials came on 27 January from Abdugaffor Qalandarov, the chief prosecutor in Tajikistan's northern Soghd Province. Qalandarov was speaking...

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., Jan. 29, 2006 – For more than a year, Albanian army Maj. Ilirjan Balliu has served as the senior national representative for Albania with the 63-nation coalition organized to combat global terrorism. Shortly after his arrival to U.S. Central Command here, Balliu had breakfast with a U.S. military officer. As the two shared conversation and coffee, the U.S. officer revealed what was on his mind. "'If you would have told me years ago that I would have been sitting at a U.S. military base, eating and talking to an Albanian military officer, I wouldn't have...

On 13 December, RFE/RL Tajik Service correspondent Latif Latifi spoke with Hungarian-born U.S. philanthropist George Soros in New York. Soros was participating in a special plenary session of the UN General Assembly to discuss the implementation of the UN Millennium Program in Tajikistan, the poorest country of the former Soviet Union. In the interview, Soros denies that his foundation is attempting to foment revolution in Tajikistan or any other country. (Listen to the complete interview (three minutes): Real Audio Windows Media) RFE/RL: What does Tajikistan and improvements in Tajikistan mean for you? Soros: I have a foundation in Tajikistan to...

Romania and the United States have signed an agreement that would establish the first U.S. military bases in an Eastern European country from the former Soviet bloc. The United States already has the rights to a base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, and is in the process of vacating one in neighboring Uzbekistan. With the United States already possessing a military presence in much of the world, what does it want with even more foreign bases? Washington, 7 December 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Romanian President Traian Basescu seemed as pleased to be hosting the bases as the Americans are...

DUSHANBE. Nov 27 (Interfax) - More than 120 kilograms of heroin were seized on the Tajik-Afghan border near Parkhar, 250 kilometers southwest of Dushanbe, Abdulsattor Gulakhmatov, press secretary of the Tajik state border guard committee, told Interfax on Sunday. Border guards fired on a group illegally crossing the border, he said. "One man, an Afghan citizen, was detained. The others managed to escape, leaving behind 112 plastic bags with heroin weighing over 120 kilograms," Gulakhmatov said. More than 1.8 tonnes of drugs, among them over 920 kilograms of heroin, have been seized on the Tajik-Afghan border in 2005. Earlier this...

A training centre to help rid Tajikistan of surplus explosives and conventional ammunition, was officially opened today by the OSCE Centre in Dushanbe. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training Centre and Demolition Ground (EOD Centre) is located in Lohur, some 30 km from the Tajik capital of Dushanbe. "Four and a half tonnes of ammunition have already been destroyed under the OSCE Centre's activity", said Ambassador Alain Couanon, Head of the OSCE Centre in Dushanbe. "Altogether, 21 tonnes of seized and confiscated conventional ammunition, as well as 26,000 pieces of small arms and light weapons will be destroyed in 2005 and...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently visited Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. On her way back to Washington she also visited France and Russia and England. (no photos seem have been released of the trip to England) Travel to Central Asia, South Asia, and Europe October 11, 2005 to October 15, 2005 Secretary Rice traveled to Central Asia, South Asia, and Europe October 10-15, 2005. Her travel to Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan aimed to advance bilateral and regional cooperation on security issues, to promote freedom through democratic and market-oriented reform, and to strengthen security in the region, including cooperation...

DUSHANBE (Reuters) - A woman blew herself up with a grenade at the Emergencies Ministry in the central Asian country of Tajikistan on Sunday, police said, without giving any clues as to why she did it. Apart from the woman, who died in an ambulance on the way to hospital, there were no other casualties in the blast outside the ministry building, which has been the target of still largely unexplained bomb attacks in the past. Tajikistan, a Muslim nation of seven million bordering Afghanistan, remains volatile and flooded with weapons after a 1992-97 civil war between Islamist guerrillas and...

The Nurek optical-electronic space monitoring center (also called "Okno" or "Window") in Tajikistan is one of Russia's most valuable facilities abroad. Russia is by right proud to have it. Located at the height of 2,200 m above sea level, the center makes effective space monitoring possible, primarily in high elliptical and geostationary orbits (GEO). The geostationary satellite rotates at the same speed as the planet in a fixed position in relation to the Earth. This is perfect for maintaining round-the-clock communications, strategic radio and radio-technical surveillance, and identification of ballistic missile launches. The military prefer geostationary satellites because they...

Another sign indicating that the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is disintegrating emerged in the Commonwealth summit held at Kazan. Turkmenistan is preparing to leave the 15 year old CIS by changing its status. Georgian President Mihail Saakashvili revealed that in the last hours of the summit, Turkmenistan government communicated its request for a change in its CIS permanent membership status. In the case that Turkmenistan breaks away from the CIS, it will be the first time since the three Baltic republics that a Central Asian Soviet will have obtained full independence....

BISHKEK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - France has deployed fighter jets in Tajikistan as part of international efforts to boost security during a September parliamentary election in next-door Afghanistan, a French military official said on Wednesday. "Six Mirage fighters have been deployed in (the Tajik capital) Dushanbe," Major Frederic Lemoine, deputy French military attache to Central Asian neighbour Kyrgyzstan, told reporters at U.S.-led air base Ganci near the capital Bishkek. Shortly after he spoke, two large-body C-135 FR refuelling planes landed at Ganci. "These refuelling jets are due to support the Mirage fighters in Tajikistan," he said, adding that the operation...

EN ROUTE TO BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 27, 2005 – Iraq needs "to be aggressively communicating" with its neighbors to stop the infiltration of foreign terrorists across its borders, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today. Speaking to the traveling press aboard his C-17 aircraft en route to Baghdad after visits to the Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Rumsfeld asserted that the behavior of Syria and Iran in allowing insurgents to enter Iraq "has been harmful" to the Iraqi government. Iraq should work with Syria and Iran "to see that foreign terrorists stop coming across those borders," Rumsfeld said....

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, July 25, 2005 – Kyrgyzstan's recent election has received kudos from a European poll-watching organization, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said July 24 en route to this former Soviet republic. Rumsfeld arrived here today. Kyrgyzstan's election, held July 10, earned good marks from the Organization for the Security and Cooperation of Europe, Rumsfeld told reporters aboard his Air Force E-4B aircraft. This, the secretary noted, is the first time any of the five former Soviet central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan had received OSCE passing grades for an election. The July 10 election was...

19 July 2005 -- Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov said today that since the threat of Afghanistan for Central Asia has declined, the presence of Western military in the region is not needed. Speaking to journalists in Dushanbe, Nazarov said there was no need for the permanent presence of military troops of the U.S.-led coalition in the region as Afghanistan is stabilizing. Some 200 French Air Force personnel and two transport aircraft are currently based at Dushanbe airport to support operations in Afghanistan. Elsewhere in Central Asia, the U.S. military is using the Khanabad air base near the southern Uzbek...

Washington D.C., 7 July (AKI/DAWN) - The US State Department has rejected demands from Russia, China and some Central Asian states to withdraw its troops from the region, saying that US troops in Afghanistan and neighbouring states would remain for as long as those countries want them to stay. Russian and Chinese officials made the demand at meeting in Kazakhstan of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which took place against backdrop of veiled criticism of Western influence in Central Asian region. SCO delegates asked the US-led troop contingent to fix a date for their departure from military bases in the...

Leaders of a six-nation security bloc led by Beijing and Moscow called for a deadline to be set for the withdrawal of US forces from bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which comprises Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, signed a declaration calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of airbases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. "Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines on...

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) -- A regional alliance led by China and Russia called Tuesday for the U.S. and its coalition allies in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from several states in Central Asia, reflecting growing unease at America's military presence in the region. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which groups Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, urged a deadline be set for withdrawal of the foreign forces from its member states in light of what it said was a decline in active fighting in Afghanistan. The alliance's move appeared to be an attempt to push the United States...