A peaceful jihad, but there will be war
Ahmed Rashid

Central Asia is reaching boiling point as Islamic fundamentalists clash with corrupt, anti-Muslim regimes. In our final extract from his new book, Ahmed Rashid, the world's most influential war correspondent, explains how one extremist organisation plans to spread its message to the entire Muslim world and establish a powerful, unified Islamic empire.

In the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, militant Islam is gaining popularity. Little is known about the new extremist movements, but rumour, myth, and the ancient Central Asian tradition of storytelling have added to their mystique. In the villages of Central Asia, people speak of how the advance guard of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan guerrillas consists of beautiful female snipers who, armed with the latest scopes and night-vision goggles, can either seduce or kill a soldier from a long distance; or of how guerrillas have been blessed by Muslim saints to make their bodies impervious to wounds.

While poverty and unemployment increase across Central Asia - and economic opportunities decrease - its debt-ridden societies are ripe for any organisation or party that offers hope for a better life. More than 60 per cent of the region's 50 million people are under the age of 25. This new generation is unemployed, poorly educated and hungry - how long will it continue to tolerate the decline in living standards and the lack of rudimentary freedoms? It is, perhaps, unsurprising that underground, extremist Islamic groups are flourishing.

In addition to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an even more widespread Islamic movement, the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (the Party of Islamic Liberation), has taken root in Central Asia. If the IMU says little about its ultimate aims, the HT produces an abundance of literature about its goals, including a website (www.hizb-ut-tahrir.org). Its aims are probably the most esoteric and anachronistic of all the radical Islamic movements in the world today.

The HT, which, like the IMU, has declared jihad in Central Asia, seeks to unite Central Asia, the Xinjiang Province in China and, eventually, the entire Islamic world community under a caliphate that would re-establish the Khilifat-i-Rashida, which ruled the Arab Muslims for a short time after the Prophet Mohammed's death in 632. This period is revered by many radical Islamic movements, including the Taliban, as the only time in Islamic history when a true Muslim society existed.

In the scenario envisaged in HT literature, one or more Islamic countries will come under HT control, after which the movement will be able to win over the rest of the Islamic world. HT leaders believe that Central Asia has reached what they call "a boiling point" and is ripe for takeover. As Sheikh Qadeem Zaloom, the current HT leader and one of its most prolific writers, describes the situation: "The issue of transforming the lands into the Islamic homeland and uniting them with the rest of the Islamic lands is an objective which the Muslims aim to achieve, and the method which ought to be undertaken to achieve this objective is that of re-establishing Khilafah."

The HT has become the most widespread popular underground movement in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and its utopian aims are growing in popularity among college and university students throughout the region. The challenge that the HT poses to the regimes of these countries can be judged by the fact that there are more HT prisoners in Central Asia's prisons than those of any other movement, including the much better known IMU (the HT claims that there are more than 100,000 political prisoners in Uzbekistan alone, but this figure is highly inflated).

The HT was founded in Saudi Arabia and Jordan in 1953 by diaspora Palestinians led by Sheikh Taqiuddin an-Nabhani Filastyni. A graduate of Al Azhar University in Cairo, an-Nabhani was a schoolteacher and a local Islamic judge before he was forced to leave Palestine to make way for the new country of Israel. He settled in Jordan in 1953, and there set up the movement.

An-Nabhani wrote many books and leaflets during his lifetime, which form the core belief of the HT. "The point at hand is not establishing several states, but one single state over the entire Muslim world," he wrote in 1962.

The HT believes in jihad as a means to mobilise supporters against non-Muslims, but it does not advocate a violent overthrow of Muslim regimes, as do other extremist groups, such as Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda. It may sympathise with the IMU, but it does not believe in guerrilla tactics.

Instead, the HT envisages a moment when millions of supporters will rise up and topple the Central Asian governments - particularly the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan - by sheer force of numbers. In the repressive climate of the region, this - combined with the HT's growing popularity - is enough to ensure government crackdowns against the movement, particularly in Uzbekistan.

An-Nabhani's concept of the future Islamic state envisages a political structure in which a caliph (civil and religious ruler) elected by an Islamic shura (council) would have dictatorial powers in a highly centralised system. The caliph would control the army, the political system, the economy and foreign policy. Sharia (Islamic law) would prevail, Arabic would be the language of the state and the role of women would be severely restricted.

The defence minister, whose title would be amir of jihad, would prepare the people for jihad against the non-Muslim world. Military conscription and training in preparation for this jihad would be mandatory for all Muslim men over 15.

The HT's popularity is stretching beyond Central Asia. Some of its leaders have set up offices in Europe, especially Germany and England. London is now believed to be a major organisational centre for the movement. There, the HT raises funds and trains recruits to spread the movement in Central Asia.

The HT has become extremely popular among Muslim students on the campuses of British universities. When it held a conference in the Docklands area of London on August 26, 2001, to debate the political crisis in Pakistan, busloads of HT supporters arrived from all over Britain and there was a live webcast on the internet.

Sheikh Zaloom, the present leader, probably lives in Europe, but his exact location remains a secret. There are no photographs of Central Asian HT leaders and no hint of who the other leaders are, how the chain of command works or where they are based.

In autumn 2000, I met, secretly, an HT leader in Uzbekistan, whom I shall call "Ali". He explained to me that the HT operates secret, decentralised five to seven-man cells throughout Central Asia, making it extremely difficult for the authorities to penetrate the organisation. The cells, called daira (circles), are study groups dedicated to the spread of Islam and the HT message. The cell chief, the only person who knows the next level of the party organisation, sets out weekly tasks for his members, who are expected to go out and create new cells.

The HT is starting to cause concern in Western capitals, even though little is known about the movement. During late 2000, an intense debate took place among Clinton administration intelligence experts about whether officially to declare the HT a group that supports terrorism. Washington finally decided against making such a statement because the HT had never participated in guerrilla activity, kidnapped people or set up armed training camps; in fact, it had always advocated peaceful change. But the fear is that young HT militants, who now face the same indiscriminate repression and poverty at home as IMU militants, may soon ignore their elders' advice and turn to guerrilla warfare.

Though the HT has still not taken the path of violence, "Ali" is not averse to issuing a dire warning: "The HT wants a peaceful jihad, which will be spread by explanation and conversion, not by war," he says. "But, ultimately, there will be war because the repression by the Central Asian regimes is so severe, and we have to prepare for that. If the IMU suddenly appears in the Fergana Valley, HT activists will not sit idly by and allow the security forces to kill them." The fear that the HT will move from an educational to a militant jihad may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But neither the HT nor the IMU has the power, the popularity, nor the military force to emerge as a victor in Central Asia. Their present success is due primarily to their repression by the Central Asian states, which turns them into martyrs, and the incompetence with which this repression is carried out. It is also the result of external sources of instability, such as the war in Afghanistan.

Moreover, the secretive leaders of these organisations cannot pose as alternatives to presidents such as Islam Karimov without first disclosing themselves and then spelling out what they have to offer the people of Central Asia. The best way for the Central Asian regimes to destroy the influence of these groups would be to bring them out into the open; to allow Islamic practice in their countries and to institute reforms that would leave the movements with only their alien ideologies to sell.

Under better economic and social conditions, such movements would have had little public appeal or impact and would have remained on the fringe of the Central Asian Islamic world, just as the HT remains marginalised in many other Muslim countries. It is the particular circumstances of the crisis in Central Asia that have pushed the IMU and the HT to centre stage and provided young people with alien role models.

Yet, as the threat increases, the Central Asian regimes have become more intransigent and less willing to address the pressing needs of their people. As the public becomes more angry and frustrated, the ruling elites continue to ignore the need for change.

The crisis that has blown up since the September 11 attacks is fraught with danger, but it also offers an enormous opportunity for change. By joining the Western alliance against al-Qa'eda, the Central Asian states have made a commitment to the international community's war against terrorism and Islamic extremism.

In so doing, they cannot afford to ignore the long-term consequences of their actions. If the American-led alliance succeeds in removing the threat of groups such as the IMU, the international community will be in a position to insist that the Central Asian regimes conduct themselves in line with international standards of democracy building, economic development, and social responsibility.

The Central Asian regimes are at a critical crossroads. They can ignore the lessons from Afghanistan and the collapse of the Afghan state and watch terrorism, instability and famine increase in their countries. Or they can take advantage of the global community's new engagement with the region to rebuild their countries. The real crisis in Central Asia lies with the state, not with the insurgents.

The Daily Telegraph, 24 January 2002