(The Diplomat) On September 16, just after the CSTO summit held in Dushanbe, Tajik authorities arrested 13 active members of the Islamic Renaissance Party and removed the passports of other 50 members to prevent them from travelling abroad. The next day, the General Prosecutor`s Office released a statement explaining the arrests as an action to prevent new acts of terrorism and crimes of an extremist nature, accusing the party of being affiliated with the armed group led by General Abduhalim Nazarzoda and of involvement in a violent attack on a police station and weapons depot that began on September 4. “Nazarzoda was acting on orders from the party, including the exiled party leader, Muhiddin Kabiri,” says the General Prosecutor's office.
The exiled leader of a recently banned Islamic Renaissance party in Tajikistan, Kabiri has rejected Tajik authorities’ accusations that he ordered to Nazarzoda to instigate and lead the deadly mutiny in September. He insisted that neither he nor his party had anything to do with the incidents. […]
How many Central Asians have in fact left their countries to join ISIS? Government security agencies offer their own estimates, but they cannot track those who leave through Turkey and Russia. Eric McGlinchey, an associate professor at George Mason University and author of Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia, told The Diplomat that nobody has a good understanding of how many have joined ISIS. “We see different numbers from different sources, however none of them seems to be credible,” he said.
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