The radical Islamic militants of Central Asia. OSW Report, November 2013

Radical Islamic militants from Central Asia have ceased to be a local phenomenon. The organisations created by those groups (the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic Jihad Union) engage in propaganda, recruitment, fundraising and terrorist operations in states distant from their traditional area of interest, such as European Union countries, South Asia and the United States. Their ranks contain not only Central Asian Islamists, but also those from other countries, such as Russia, Pakistan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, Turkey and even Myanmar. These organisations’ current activities and forms are multidimensional and complicated, characterised by combat versatility, structural amorphism, operational mobility and simultaneous operations in different fields and theatres. As a result of the universalization of Islamic terrorism, these organisations have been intensifying contacts with other international Islamic terrorist organisations based in Waziristan (mainly al-Qaida, Taliban and the Haqqani Network). A specific system of mutual cooperation has developed between them, involving the specialisation of various terrorist organisations in particular aspects of terrorist activity. The IMU and IJU specialise in the recruitment and training of Islamic radicals from around the world, and have thus become a kind of ‘jihad academy’.

Jihad vs The New Great Game: Paradoxes of militant Islamic threats in Central Asia. OSW Point of View (Policy Brief), January 2010

Threats linked to Islamic fundamentalism have been hanging over Central Asia for almost two decades. Many believe that militant Islam has played a significant part in each major political crisis in the region, and Central Asia is perceived as an almost perfect environment for its further development. Such a picture of this region is a result of serious abuses and manipulations. The real threat posed by militant Islam seems to be rather limited, and its roots lie outside Central Asia. This region is unlikely to become a key front of global jihad. Nevertheless, this does not guarantee peace and safety in Central Asia, as the Islamic threat remains an element of the geopolitical rivalry in the region – the ‘New Great Game’.

The Middle East in the shadow of the Islamic State. OSW Point of View Number 52, August 2015

Since June 2014, Islamic State (IS) has been regarded as the principal security threat in the Middle East and one of the most important problems for European and global security. Islamic State, which for many years was just one of many terror organisations with links to al-Qaeda, has succeeded in achieving much more than other similar organisations: it has taken over control of large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq by military means, created its own para-state structures in that area, and become the greatest civilisational challenge for the region in a century as it established a self-proclaimed caliphate and credibly pledged to expand further on a global scale. Those successes have been accompanied by widely publicised acts of systemic brutality which meets the definition of crimes against humanity. One outcome of these developments is the emergence of an exotic informal alliance to combatthe Islamic State, which has brought together all the states from the Middle East and many from beyond the region. However, contrary to what could have been predicted, after almost a year of the declared war against IS, the Caliphate still holds most of the ground it gained in 2014.