Jihadism in Central Asia: A Credible
Threat After the Western Withdrawal From Afghanistan?
Read more at: http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/08/13/jihadism-in-central-asia-credible-threat-after-western-withdrawal-from-afghanistan
Read more at: http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/08/13/jihadism-in-central-asia-credible-threat-after-western-withdrawal-from-afghanistan
The states of Central
Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—are
closely watching the political situation in Afghanistan, a neighbor with whom
three of them share a border. This situation concerns them very deeply.
Central Asian governments view with
alarm and pessimism the withdrawal by the end of 2014 of most of the Western
troops that have been present in Afghanistan since a NATO-led security mission
began in 2001. Kabul’s neighbors expect the already-unstable situation in
Afghanistan to deteriorate and threaten their own security and stability. They
fear that a radical Islamist regime in Afghanistan will emerge from a Taliban
military victory—a scenario that many Central Asian leaders and analysts
believe is inevitable and will spill over across Afghanistan’s northern border.1
