PERSONALITY CULTS IN TURKMENISTAN: DECONSTRUCTION AND CONSTRUCTION
By Jan Šír (6/27/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In May, Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov publicly reviewed the construction plans for a new architectural complex to be built in the capital Ashkhabad commemorating the Turkmen national heroes of the war against Nazism in 1941-1945 and the victims of the devastating Ashkhabad earthquake of 1948. The president’s endorsement came only two weeks following the nationwide celebrations of the Day of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, referred to by Turkmenistan's media for the first time omitting the Soviet epithet “Great Patriotic.
NIGERIAN HOSTAGE SITUATION INDICATES TIES BETWEEN NORTH AFRICAN AND CENTRAL ASIAN JIHADISTS
By Jacob Zenn (6/27/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has shown interest in Central Asia through its statement on the riots in Xinjiang in 2009 and its demand in 2012 for the release of a female Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) and German Taliban Mujahideen (GTM) financier incarcerated in Germany. AQIM and IJU both aim to create a global Islamic Caliphate and share enemies, such as the U.
TURKMENISTAN EYES UKRAINE AND BELARUS FOR POTENTIAL GAS EXPORT
By Dmitry Shlapentokh (6/27/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The presidents of Ukraine and Belarus, Viktor Yanukovych and Alexander Lukashenko, both visited Turkmenistan in April 2012. Whereas Ukraine is staunchly opposed to Moscow’s planned Eurasian Union and Belarus is part of a Union State with Russia, both countries are in fact interested in reducing their dependence on Russian gas, which Moscow uses not only for economic but also geopolitical domination.
THE PROSPECTS FOR WAR IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH
By Emil Souleimanov (6/13/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On June 4 to 6, an intensive shootout occurred on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border in the Gazakh-Tavush area that claimed the lives of five Azerbaijani and three Armenian soldiers. This could be termed just another skirmish in a series of low intensity fighting that costs hundreds of lives on both sides of the conflict.
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Analysis Niklas Swanström and Leah Oppenheimer, "Invisible Ink: Looking for the Lost Trade between China, Russia, and Central Asia", ISDP Policy Brief, 13 March 2013. 
New Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr with Adib Farhadi, Finish the Job: Jump-Start the Afghan Economy, December 2012.
Conference Report Cheryl Benard, Eli Sugarman, and Holly Rehm, Cultural Heritage vs. Mining on the New Silk Road? Finding Technical Solutions for Mes Aynak and Beyond (in cooperation with the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage) December 2012.
Article Svante E. Cornell, "The 'Afghanization of the North Caucasus: Causes and Implications of a Changing Conflict", in Stephen Blank, ed., Russia's Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2012.