Tajik teenage terrorists
Yesterday, theTajik intelligence officials reported on detainment of teenagers who were trained in a terrorist camp. However, the report did not clarify what country they were trained in and what terrorist organization did recruit them. The information agency Regnum (rus) took an interview from Nozirjon Buriev, the Head of the Information Center of State Committee of National Security. He reported that…
…according to the preliminary investigations the detained teenagers were sent to one of the Islamic countries several years ago with false documents to study religious sciences. However, in the place of arrival the teenagers were learning the basics of terrorism together with religious studies. More then that, they were exposed to regular physical and mental violence. Particularly, they were beaten with rubber truncheons and iron sticks. Also, the teenagers were forced to watch documentary movies about mujahids and shahids [martyrs].
The other Russian information agency Interfax (eng) reports that there was also detained an Iranian citizen ‘as accomplice in sending Tajik teenagers to Islamic countries for training in terrorist camps.’
Iranian citizen Kifoyatullo approached parents of teenagers from 10 to 15 years of age with a proposal to send them for studies in a madrasah…
However, the report states, instead of religious education, ‘terrorist organizations abroad, in their desire to cultivate them as mojaheds (fighters for faith) and shahids (martyrs) have trained them (the teenagers - IF) for terrorist actions.
It is just terrible to acknowledge that children are used by terrorists to reach their political and ideological goals by all means. This story reminds me the Hollywood blockbuster “Blood Diamond” where the juveniles are used by rebellions as killing machines.
on May 23rd, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Well, it’s always possible of course. But I’ve grown sceptical about a certain kind of anti-Islamic horror stories or, rather, the political manipulation of it.
See eg. that bizarre and controversial baby suicide bomber picture that the Israëli army came up with: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/06/28/baby.photo/index.html
or the following Moskovskii Komsomolets story of 2004 which, as if by chance, pre-dated yet another anti-Muslim arrest campaign in Uzbekistan:
http://www.mk.ru/blogs/idmk/2004/07/19/mk-daily/35127/
on May 23rd, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Hear hear, with a pinch of salt. Why should we believe anything that comes from a government probably interested in exagerrating a terrorist threat?
on May 24th, 2007 at 7:16 am
What a bunch of bullcrap.
Nonpon, make no mistake about it, this is yet another government ploy to divert public attention from the issues that are so painfully familiar to all of the ordinary citizens in our poverty-stricken land.
on May 24th, 2007 at 8:12 am
Yes that’s what I wanted to say. Typically, things like this initially pop up in Russian sources quoting reprsentatives of CAsian security establishments.
It’s nothing new. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, fires and explosions at a bazaar in Bishkek in 2001 and an exchange booth in Osh in 2003 were immediately put on ‘IMU terrorists’ and ‘Uighur separatists’ and then later turned out to be merely mafia-related. Or that clumsy grenade attack against Akayev’s sec chief Misir Ashyrkulov in 2002 which was st. similar.
“to divert public attention from the issues that are so painfully familiar to all of the ordinary citizens in our poverty-stricken land.”
Yes. Much worse than ‘teenage terrorists’ are the children slaving on cotton plantations in Vakhsh and Ferghana and teenagers being prostituted for/by fat mafia hokims and certain expats.
Also, who and what is ‘terrorism’? That can be anything depending of how you look at it. ‘State terrorism’, as it is practiced by the Uzbek regime, for instance? Rebel groups who attack oppressive structures and their interests? What is it?
on May 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
I agree with the comments of the concerned people; it is difficult to determine what is truth and what is not. However and notwithstanding that, one must agree that in nearly every conflict in the nations today the one common factor is radical Islamism, regardless of nationality, religion, language. we see the evidence of what is reported in this news event in Gaza etc where the children are openly taught terrorism. Disregarding the Zionist element the truth then is that this is eminently possible. Tajikistan does not need this “distraction” but rather needs to focus on preparing its people, and from an early age, to drag itself out of the problems that have held it down long enough.