Saipov also seems to have been radicalized after he came to the United States, and not back in Uzbekistan. But ISIS and other militant groups have been actively recruiting Uzbek migrant workers in the US, Russia, and Europe. A two-year federal terrorism investigation led to charges against five men from Uzbekistan, and another from neighboring Kazakhstan, for providing “material support” to ISIS. Uzbeks have also conducted attacks in Russia, Turkey, and Sweden over the past year, killing 57 people.
However, “it would be a terrible mistake to draw negative conclusions on Uzbekistan because of this one crazed individual,” Frederick Starr, a Central Asia expert at Johns Hopkins University, told the radio program 1A in an interview today. “In terms of Islamic extremism, [Uzbekistan is] quite quiet today — quieter than most of the region.” [...]
From then, the country suffered under the authoritarian rule of dictator Islam Karimov until his death in 2016. He held a tight grip on the state, controlled the media, and centralized the economy. The state’s brutal security service spread its authority throughout the country, even into small neighborhoods. And Karimov ran a secular government, even though the majority of the population is Muslim. [...]
“Patterns of radicalization for Uzbeks are somewhat similar to that of migrants from other countries, an inability to fit into the society where [they] live, an inability to live the American dream,” she said. “So they are looking for ways to belong and extremist narratives seem to be the most attractive.”
ISIS and other terrorist groups have taken advantage of that feeling of disenfranchisement to recruit Uzbeks and other Central Asians abroad, promising a more lavish and purposeful lifestyle for those who join their ranks. The Financial Times reports that around 80 to 90 percent of ISIS fighters from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan radicalized while they were working in Russia.
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