Analytical Articles

On October 19, four Chechen militants stormed the Chechen parliament in Grozny, causing the deaths of six police officers and wounding 17. According to the Russian Interfax news agency, the militants arrived at the parliament by car and forced their way into the parliamentary compound; one of them blew himself up and two were shot dead. This attack is the second serious incident in Chechnya in recent months. In August, militants launched a massive attack on Chechnya’s pro-Russian leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s native village of Tsentoroi. These incidents in Chechnya indicate a split in the North Caucasian insurgency.

The Kazakh banking system has returned to solvency. A comparison of the macro-situation of October 2008 with that two years later shows that the national inflation rate has fallen from 18.2 percent to 6.7 percent, banks’ liquidity as a percentage of all their assets has risen from 14.1 percent to 22.6 percent, the volume of banks’ assets placed in the National Bank has risen from US$ 9.1 to US$ 10.5 billion, and the gross external debt of the national banking system has decreased from US$ 41.6 billion to US$ 17 billion. Although the national economy grew by only 0.3 percent in 2009, most Eurasian countries experienced GDP contractions that year.

Conventional wisdom has it that Azerbaijanis, the largest ethnic minority in Iran, have historically tended to identify themselves with the idea of Iranian statehood and Shiite religion rather than ethnic nationalism. Yet recent years have shown a growth of their Azerbaijani Turkic self-consciousness which has not least manifested itself in the form of “sport nationalism”. The numerous fans of the Tabriz-based Tractor Sazi football club have become advocates of the ethno-linguistic emancipation of Iranian Azerbaijanis, an emancipation sometimes bordering on separatism and irredentism.

Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan remain tense despite Islamabad’s decision to allow vital supplies for coalition troops in Afghanistan after an ISAF helicopter incursion into Pakistan that claimed the lives of four Pakistani soldiers and injured another two. Meanwhile, the usage of Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAVs) inside Pakistan’s tribal areas continues despite widespread public discontent in Pakistan. Islamabad has yet to condemn drone incursions and unlawful killings resulting from drone attacks. Meanwhile, militants are increasingly attacking targets in Pakistan such as its security forces and NATO supply caravans, traveling from the coastal areas to the Torkham border crossing.

On October 10, for the first time since independence in 1991 the voters in Kyrgyzstan went to the voting stations with great fear for their safety, amid widely circulated rumors about potential bloody incidents. The electorate was also deeply polarized in their views of the elections. One large group of voters was profoundly frustrated and disillusioned with the democratic experiment in the country. The other group was highly optimistic about the outcomes, claiming that the introduction of the parliamentary republic would finally put to an end the abuses, excesses and corrupt practices of the so-called super-presidential system, where the president played a disproportionally large and often destructive role in the political development of the country.

Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia held a two-day summit in early September, at the two countries’ Seventh Forum on Interregional Cooperation in Oskemen (settled by order of Peter the Great in 1720, called Ust’-Kamenogorsk from the mid-nineteenth century until 1992), the capital of the East-Kazakhstan province. While some agreements to implement existing agreements for joint energy development of the Khvalynskoe and Imashevskoe deposits were reached, the summit was mainly notable for being less superficial than other such meetings in the recent past.

While Islamic fundamentalism exist to a greater or lesser extent in every Central Asian country, these threats are greatest in Tajikistan. Regardless of whether radicalized Islam in Tajikistan is considered a consequence of the civil war including the marginalization of former allies of President Rakhmon and members of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRP), poverty exacerbated by corruption driving people to seek justice through religion, or a crumbling regime losing control at the “top” and “bottom” of its society, the new pattern of violence indicates serious challenges for Tajikistan. Unless the government finds ways to improve its intelligence and security forces, the unrest will likely continue and worsen.

The relationship between the U.S. and Russia has been increasingly tense over the last ten years. Still, the fear of instability in Afghanistan and Central Asia has brought them together. Articles have appeared in the Russian press, which have emphasized the importance of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. Some concrete actions also point to a recognized need for cooperation. For example, Russia provided 20 helicopters to Afghanistan and an open corridor for U.S. cargo. Still, both sides remain suspicious of each other’s intentions and full-fledged cooperation is unlikely to develop.

In August-September 2010 Russia announced that it had stationed S-300 missiles in Abkhazia since 2008, thereby admitting that it had deliberately broken the agreement with the EU that ended the Georgian war.  Moreover, this is part of Russia’s larger comprehensive military buildup there that has led to five military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, also in violation of the 2008 accords.  Moscow has also moved decisively to establish itself as the unchallenged gendarme of the Caucasus by extend the lease on the Gyumri military in Armenia while selling Azerbaijan S-300 air defense missiles The important element is the impunity with which Russia has violated its commitments, primarily due to Washington’s failure to react. 

In recent months, violence has increased significantly in the Republic of Dagestan, the most populous autonomous republic of Russia’s North Caucasus with its 2.5 million inhabitants. On September 4, the republic’s minister for national affairs, Bekmurza Bekmurzayev, was assassinated. The next day, the Russian military base at Buynaksk was attacked by a suicide bomber, claiming the lives of four federal soldiers. Shootings, bombings and police raids against the strongholds of Islamist insurgents occur on a daily basis and have become an integral part of the political landscape of this mountainous republic. Yet what are the causes, current situation and prospects of the insurgency in Dagestan?