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Here is an interesting tidbit of information from the charge sheet against David Coleman Headley, the US jihadi indicted for plotting attacks in Denmark. Headley traveled to North Waziristan and afterward offered his view on the number of al Qaeda and other foreign jihadis in the tribal agencies' largest towns (in response to a think tank survey that said a significant number of people in the northwest approved of the Predator attacks against al Qaeda):

Pakistani forces say they have seized control of the town of Kaniguram in South Waziristan, one of the Taliban's key regional strongholds. The army said it had full control of the town, the latest capture in an offensive against militants that began in South Waziristan on 17 October. The offensive has sparked a string of suicide bomb attacks. About 35 people were killed in an attack in Rawalpindi and seven were injured on the outskirts of Lahore. Rewards offered Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas, in the capital Islamabad, said that the Kaniguram area had been "completely cleared of terrorists"....

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...

Several parents - named as victims in the indictment against three Baptist Union leaders now on trial in Tashkent - have told the court that statements that their children were taught the Baptist faith against their wishes were fabricated or dictated by Investigator Anatoli Tadjibayev, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The head of Uzbekistan’s Baptist Union Pavel Peichev and two colleagues went on trial on 24 September accused of teaching religion illegally to children at church-run summer camps and evading tax on profits from the camp. They deny all the charges - which carry punishment of up to three...

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."

Note: Photos included. SNIPPET - QUOTE: Name: www.furqon.com Address: 94.75.240.140 Host: IHS Telekom Inc. Istanbul, Turkey Network access provider: LeaseWeb, Amsterdam, Netherlands This site is distributing a new video from the IMU, featuring the "German" jihadi Abu Askar and his Great Big Knife™ which I assume makes up for some sort of anatomical deficit: Finally, I note that among the sites featured in their list of links is the following: The Network of Ethiopian Muslims in Europe

Uzbekistan: Believers Arrested On Aug. 23, seven church members belonging to the registered Donam Protestant church were arrested and Christian literature confiscated when more than 20 police officers raided a church service in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, according to Forum 18 News. Members of the Anti-Terror Police claimed the service was “unauthorized” and although three men were released on the same day, four, including the pastor, Vladimir Tyo, were sentenced to 15 days in prison. They have been charged with “violation of the procedure for organizing and conducting meetings.” The judge ordered the confiscated literature be destroyed. This is the latest of...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Tashkent (Old City), Uzbekistan Security Notice CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - Uzbekistan 30 Aug 2009 U.S. Embassy Tashkent issued the following Warden Message on August 30: Several local sources report that on the evening of Saturday, August 29th Uzbek police forces clashed with unknown armed assailants in the “Old City” area of Tashkent. The Embassy has confirmed that there has been a substantial increase in police activity in this part of town. Because of ongoing police...

TASHKENT CITY, Uzbekistan (ABP) -- Authorities in Uzbekistan cracked down on Baptists after a government-sponsored news agency ran articles alleging illegal religious activity at a summer camp for children. Forum 18, a Norway-based news service that monitors alleged violations of religious freedom, reported July 28 that Pavel Peichev, head of the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of Middle Asia, faces criminal charges of unlawfully teaching children religion and misusing resort facilities. Local Baptists fear huge fines, confiscation of the property, imprisonment or some combination of penalties if Peichev is convicted

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."

TASHKENT -- Uzbekistan is warning against a Russian plan to open a military base near the Uzbek border in southern Kyrgyzstan, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reports. Uzbek Senator Surayo Odilhodjaeva told RFE/RL that the proposed new base -- reportedly near the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh -- would not contribute to the security of Central Asia. "I think the less military bases we have in the region, the better," she said. Uzbek political commentator Sanobar Shermatova said Tashkent's objection to an increased Russian military presence close to its borders is natural. "Tashkent wants to maintain a balance of power," Shermatova said....

SNIPPET - QUOTE: July 04, 2009 MATERIALS ON RELIGIOUS-EXTREMIST ORGANIZATION "HIZB UT-TAHRIR", WITH PROOFS OF ITS PARTICIPATION IN TERRORIST ACTIVITY. [Editorial note: This is the text of a document found on the website of The General Consulate of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Athens. It is presented here without editing - the English is a little non-standard, but the meaning is clear. It presents the Uzbeckistan government's analysis of Hizb ut-Tahrir and why Uzbeckistan considers the Hizb ut-Tahrir to be a terrorist organization. Of note are the allegations of inter-linkage between Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.]

SNIPPET: "The Turkic peoples have until now played a fairly peripheral role in global jihadism. They have not attracted much academic attention, and apart from the 2003 Istanbul bombings and the 2008 American Consulate attacks, operations carried out by Turkics have gained little attention. The Waziristan-based group Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) seems to be trying to change this (as Jihadica has suggested before). The IJU broke off from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 2001, and went for a while under the name Islamic Jihad Group. When the name changed in 2005, the group also assumed a new strategy, one...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Uzbekistan Suicide Bombing CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - Uzbekistan 27 May 2009 Printer Friendly Email Article RELATED REPORTS 3 Apr 2009 UZBEKISTAN 2009 CRIME & SAFETY REPORT U.S. Embassy Tashkent issued the following Warden Message on May 27: Uzbek officials today confirmed recent media reports of a suicide bombing in the city of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley region of Uzbekistan and an assault on a border post near the town of Khanabad on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz...

Note: The following text is a quote: Eight Uzbekistan Nationals Among 12 Charged with Racketeering, Human Trafficking & Immigration Violations in Scheme to Employ Illegal Aliens in 14 States Twelve defendants, including eight Uzbekistan nationals, have been charged in a 45-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo., on May 6, 2009, on RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) charges related to labor racketeering, forced labor trafficking and immigration and other violations in 14 states. Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev, 30, Nodir Yunusov, 22, Rustamjon Shukurov, 21, citizens of Uzbekistan residing in Mission, Kan.; Ilkham Fazilov, 44, Nodirbek...

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...

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...

Christopher Flavelle at Slate describes the skyrocketing political and economic price of supplying Afghanistan. When it became clear that the US was going to shift the weight of its effort to that landlocked country, the market power of the countries which control the supply routes has increased dramatically. Flavelle describes “the ethical predicament now looming in Central Asia, where Obama may soon need to choose either funding a vicious dictator in Uzbekistan or hindering the mission in Afghanistan. Getting into bed with Uzbekistan could be Obama’s first ugly but necessary foreign-policy compromise.” Uzbekistan’s human rights record is so odious that...

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Uzbek President Islam Karimov pledged Friday to support a new trans-Russian gas pipeline, easing Moscow's fears that it would succumb to European pressure to bypass Russia with its energy supplies and reduce its influence in the region. Karimov told President Dmitry Medvedev that Uzbekistan had offered to sell 16 billion cubic meters of gas to Russia this year and could double that amount within the next decade. "We are ready to work with Russia on the construction of new pipelines that would enable us to boost exports and transit of gas," Karimov told reporters in the Uzbek...

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...

Takada Kenzo, Andre Rau, Gulnara Karimova Uzbekistan rose out of the fashion dust, like a proud Asian Tiger ready to pounce on its glamorous prey, with the formation of Style.uz, hosted by Gulnara Karimova, a week long, annual, mega-cultural event that began in 2006, and reached new zeniths of popularity, this past October 12th to 17th, encompassing art, design, style, music, food, classes, parties and photography, catapulting the country to the center of the glam cosmos. Rod Stewart preforming on the Registan stage

MANAS AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan, Nov. 6, 2008 – Air Force Tech. Sgt. Kelman Khersonsky recalls spending summers in his youth as a Pioneer “scout” of the Soviet Union at Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul Lake. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Kelman Khersonsky refuels an aircraft over Afghanistan during one of the last refueling missions of his deployment to Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan, Oct. 29, 2008. U.S. Air Force photo   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. It never crossed his mind then that he might one day return to the former Soviet republic as a KC-135 Stratotanker boom operator with the Pennsylvania Air...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday secured agreement from Uzbekistan to start building a new gas pipeline to Russia in a deal that bolsters Moscow's sway over Central Asian energy supplies. In the wake of Russia's war with Georgia, it also strengthens Moscow's hand with the European Union, which has been looking to secure energy supplies that bypass Russia. Uzbek President Islam Karimov, after meeting with Putin in Tashkent on Tuesday, announced that the new pipeline would carry up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, boosting Russian imports by 50 percent. Gazprom will set up...

In another frustrating foul-up on the path towards converting Soviet-era military missiles into cash-paying satellite launchers, a military-industrial team in Moscow has announced the 'indefinite suspension' of plans to launch an earth resources survey satellite for Thailand. The reasons: at the last moment, for the second time, overflight permission has been revoked by a country downrange of the launch site. First Uzbekistan, and now Kazakhstan, denied permission for dropping the booster's spent first stage onto their territories. "We never thought we'd see a repeat of the Uzbekistan case," lamented Thongchai Charuppat, director of Thailand's "GeoInformatics and Space Technology Development Agency...

Excerpt - ALMATY, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A strong earthquake jolted the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Friday, a witness said. ~ snip ~

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda allies running terror camps for tots on the Afghan-Pakistan border are using video of a boy “martyred” in combat to recruit jihadis. The apparently lifeless body of the child, an Uzbek boy younger than 11, is the focus of the grisly half-hour video by the Islamic Jihad Union — a radical Uzbek group practically indistinguishable from Osama Bin Laden’s network, according to U.S. officials. "In a fierce battle in Waziristan between the soldiers of Allah and the friends of Satan, Abd al-Rahim was wounded by an arrow," says an Uzbek narrator, referring to a bullet or...

A court in the Astrakhan Region, south Russia, will consider a criminal case against an Uzbek man accused of trying to smuggle items into Iran used in the production of weapons of mass destruction, Russian prosecutors said. Investigators said that in July 2007 businessman Anar Godzhayev, 39, knowingly failed to declare the metallic substances, made from tantalum, in a customs declaration form in contravention of customs regulations. Godzhayev is currently being held in custody.

<p>In this episode of Covert Radio we focus on Iran and Central Asia. Joining us on the line are Bruce Pannier in segment 1 and Banafesheh Zand Bonazzi in segment 2.</p> <p>Bruce takes us on a journey of sorts into Central Asia and into the key strategic water disputes between Dushanbe (Uzbekistan) and Bishkek (Kyrgystan). This stuff matters because ultimately it affects US interests in that part of the world.</p>

The U.S. Treasury Department has announced that it has frozen bank accounts belonging to members of an alleged terrorist group from Uzbekistan that it says is trying to overthrow the Uzbek government as well as attack U.S. targets. The Treasury Department said on June 18 that the accounts belong to the leader of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), Najmiddin Jalolov, and his deputy, Suhayl Buranov. The group is believed to have ties to Al-Qaeda and has claimed responsibility for bombings and attacks in Uzbekistan in 2004. Last year, German authorities arrested three men suspected of being IJU members and charged...

Religious persecution is well-known in Uzbekistan, where human rights group accuse the government of imprisoning hundreds of Muslims for practicing their faith outside state-approved institutions and labeling them extremists bent on overthrowing the secular government. Now, the government of President Islam Karimov is taking a broader aim against believers -- this time targeting primarily fringe Christian missionary groups. A recent documentary on Uzbek state television condemned such groups as the Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Gospel Church, and Blagodat (Grace) as creating a "global problem, along with religious dogmatism, fundamentalism, terrorism, and drug addiction." The documentary, "In the Clutches of Ignorance," featured...

This place in Uzbekistan is called by locals “The Door to Hell”. It is situated near the small town of Darvaz. The story of this place lasts already for 35 years. Once the geologists were drilling for gas. Then suddenly during the drilling they have found an underground cavern, it was so big that all the drilling site with all the equipment and camps got deep deep under the ground. None dared to go down there because the cavern was filled with gas. So they ignited it so that no poisonous gas could come out of the hole, and since...

French arrest 10 in connection with terror probe By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer Authorities in France, Germany and the Netherlands on Friday detained at least 10 people suspected of helping to fund al-Qaida-linked militants with roots in Uzbekistan, officials said. One suspect was detained in Germany, another in the Netherlands, with the rest detained in France, said a senior French police official who was only authorized to discuss the arrests on condition of anonymity. The suspects' nationalities were not given but officials said they were Turkic-speaking. French police suspect they collected funds for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a...

Three years after Uzbek security troops opened fire on a public square packed with peaceful demonstrators, President Islam Karimov's government maintains that the crackdown thwarted a plot to overthrow the government and establish Islamic rule. His administration continues to reject Western and UN demands for an independent inquiry into the deadly confrontation in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon on May 13, 2005. But as the anniversary approached, the West stood accused of forgiving the Uzbek government for a massacre of civilians at Andijon and warming to Tashkent for strictly geopolitical reasons. Rights activists have expressed concerned that international attention...

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...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US dropped China from its list of the world's worst human rights violaters, but added Syria, Uzbekistan and Sudan to the alleged offenders in an annual report released Tuesday. The State Department's 2007 Human Rights Report showed China, which has raised hopes it will improve human rights by hosting the 2008 Olympics, had parted company with countries like North Korea, Myanmar and Iran.

MOSCOW, March 5 (Reuters) - Uzbekistan may let the United States use a military airbase for operations in Afghanistan after evicting U.S. troops in 2005, a NATO official and diplomats said on Wednesday. Any move by Washington to tiptoe back into Uzbekistan is certain to enrage Russia, which has accused NATO of triggering a new arms race by beefing up its military presence around Russia. Once an ally in the U.S.-declared war against terrorism, Uzbekistan evicted U.S. troops from Karshi-Khanabad airbase in 2005 when the West condemned it for firing on protesters in the town of Andizhan. Robert Simmons, NATO's...

Kremlin seeks to strengthen clout in central Asia Feb 07 2008, 03:20 © AP Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov walk side-by-side at their Feb. 6 meeting in the Kremlin. MOSCOW (AP) – President Vladimir Putin sought to strengthen Russia’s economic and political clout in Central Asia during talks with the leader of strategically located, resource-rich Uzbekistan on Feb. 6. During his meeting with longtime President Islam Karimov, Putin worked hard to secure Moscow’s grip on natural gas supplies from Uzbekistan, a key country in the ex-Soviet region. Russia already has a monopoly on supplies from...

As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward. But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a...

TASHKENT (Reuters) - Uzbeks head to the polls on Sunday in an election certain to extend President Islam Karimov's long rule and criticized by the opposition and human rights activists as a Soviet-style contest. In power since 1989, Karimov is accused by international rights groups of violating basic freedoms in his Central Asian homeland. Karimov was condemned in the West in 2005 when troops opened fire on a protest in the town of Andizhan. "Under no circumstances one should accept this election as legitimate," said Nigara Khidoyatova, leader of the unregistered opposition Ozod Dekhkonlar party. "We live in an ugly...

Behind every international story that you read, every radio report that you hear or television piece that you watch, there is likely to be a person that we - the reporters - rarely mention. Often it is the first person we meet when we fly into a foreign country. Someone who explains to us the nuts and bolts of the story we have come to cover, who fills us in on what is happening on the ground and puts us in touch with vital contacts. This person is a local journalist. And after we - the global media - exhaust...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three suspected Islamist militants who were planning to attack American targets in Germany had orders to act by September 15 and knew police were hot on their trail before their arrest, a magazine said on Saturday. The plan was foiled on Tuesday when police arrested two German converts to Islam and a Turk in the biggest German police investigation in the last 30 years. According to surveillance details published in Der Spiegel magazine, the men had been given a two-week deadline for their planned strikes in a late August call from northern Pakistan that was monitored by...

Three men have been arrested for planning attacks on Frankfurt's international airport and the U.S. military base in Ramstein, the German Defense Minister said Wednesday. "There was an imminent threat," Franz Josef Jung told Germany's ARD broadcaster. He declined to elaborate. Two of the suspects had German citizenship while the third was Pakistani, Germany's Sudwestrundfunk public broadcaster said. German federal prosecutors said they had arrested three suspected members of "an Islamic motivated terrorist organization." It was not immediately clear whether the three were suspected of having links to al Qaeda. Sudwestrundfunk said the men were arrested Tuesday evening and were...

AFP via translation - Engagements between islamist in Pakistani tribal zone: at least 106 dead WANA (Pakistan) - the engagements between Uzbek and islamist militants islamist local who have lasted for Monday in the Pakistani tribal zone made at least 106 died, indicated Wednesday to the AFP of the persons in charge for the local services of safety. Among the victims 78 Uzbek militants and 28 buildings appear, and half of them were killed since Tuesday evening, added under cover of anonymity. The engagements began after a leader local taliban, mollah Nazir, rejoined with the authorities to expel the foreign...

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan: Uzbek authorities on Wednesday accused a U.S.-based health-care aid group of legal violations and supporting "interests of homosexuals" in the tightly controlled ex-Soviet republic, where homosexuality is outlawed. The medical nonprofit Population Services International, or PSI, failed to submit required legal paperwork from its headquarters in Washington and did not register its office rental contract, the Justice Ministry said in statement posted on the Internet. "PSI is especially famous for its projects universally asserting interests of persons with unorthodox sexual orientation," the statement said, adding that homosexuality is punishable by up to three years in prison in Uzbekistan....

THE glamorous eldest daughter of the dictatorial president of Uzbekistan is being tipped as his most likely successor.Gulnara Karimova, 33, dubbed the “Princess of Uzbeks”, is a Harvard graduate, pop singer, martial arts expert, jewellery designer, wealthy businesswoman and mother of two children. Now she is being talked about as the next president of the former Soviet state where her father Islam Karimov, who has ruled since 1991, is due to step down in January at the end of his second term. A ruthless leader whose mandate has twice been extended through rigged referendums, the 68-year-old Karimov may yet look...

AMERICA’s efforts to secure future energy supplies — the “Great Game” of 21st-century global diplomacy — became entangled yesterday with an even greater game: that of poking fun at Kazakhstan, as played by the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.As George Bush was playing host to President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, a country desperate to be taken seriously, Cohen, in his role of Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakh TV reporter, upstaged them both. Borat issued an invitation last night to “George Walter Bush and other American dignitaries, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill Gates, O. J. Simpsons and Mel Gibsons”, to a private screening...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Borat, the fictional TV reporter from Kazakhstan, may have gotten under the skin of Kazakh officials but on Thursday he couldn't get past the gates of the White House. Secret Service agents turned away British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the boorish, anti-Semitic journalist, when he tried to invite "Premier George Walter Bush" to a screening of his upcoming movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Also invited to the screening: O.J. Simpson, "Mel Gibsons" and other "American dignitaries." (slice) Shortly after Nazarbayev dedicated a statue in front of...

NABEREZHNIYE CHELNY, Tatarstan -- Ravil Gumarov, 40, was once a model Soviet citizen. He was a member of the Komsomol, he graduated from vocational school, and he had a well-paid position as a foreman at construction sites in his hometown. Today, his official title is detainee JJJBJC at the prison camp at the U.S. naval base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is one of eight Russian citizens identified by Russian investigators among the hundreds of detainees suspected of having links to the Taliban or al-Qaida. They were seized by U.S. troops in Afghanistan earlier this year. Three of the eight,...

Central Asian governments have spent years engaged in high-profile efforts to repress membership of the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Some observers are warning that harsh repression could prompt Hizb ut-Tahrir's members to take up arms -- they also suggest that young members compose the group's hard core. PRAGUE, July 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- It is virtually impossible to estimate the size or composition of Hizb ut-Tahrir's membership in Central Asia. The movement is banned in most places. But some observers say anecdotal evidence suggests the group's core of younger members is growing.

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...