ISIS threat
Back in the days of Trump's election campaign the US president to be made a pledge to his supporters in Connecticut back in 2016, promising that under his command the Pentagon will beat ISIS down into the ground "very, very quickly." Back then there was a lot of skeptical voices noting that Trump couldn't possibly be up to the task.

However, since then ground realities in Syria and Iraq have changed drastically. ISIS lost control of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq in July of 2017. Three months later, it had to surrender its formal capital-the Syrian city of Raqqa. Many fighters would then retreat to Deir ez-Zor in the country's east that was next to suffer a crushing defeat.

Just recently, it's been announced by the vice president of the United States, Michael Pence that the so-called Islamic State has ceased to exist, adding that in Iraq and Syria, where ISIS at one point in time used to control half of these countries' respective territories, with all of the former strongholds of radical Islamists have now been reclaimed.

However, what Washington doesn't seem to be willing to discuss is that there's new reports coming of ISIS militants attacking Central Asian states. According to a report of the ABC TV station, a group of Western tourists became the target of a terrorist attack in the Tajikistani village of Dangara. According to eyewitness reports, a group of individuals stopped a car near unsuspecting foreign tourists, leapt out and slashed at the victims with knives before getting back into the vehicle and speeding off.

This unprovoked instance of gruesome violence is reminiscent of similar incidents organized by ISIS, including the vehicle-ramming and stabbing on London Bridge in July last year, which left eight people dead and more 48 injured, the Time notes.

Under those circumstances one can't help but wonder - did Trump really beat ISIS? Or is it possible that the militants of this radical Islamists groups were redeployed in other regions of the world to carry on their reign of terror.


It's been noted that ISIS has various affiliates dotted around the globe. Some of them-its affiliate in Libya, for example-seem to have global ambitions and reach, while ISIS remains able to direct or, more commonly, inspire attacks in the West. Therefore, the notion that ISIS has really been beaten down has to be carefully scrutinized before the final conclusion can be drawn.

In his interview with Focus, the president of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maassen, stresses that the threat of ISIS shouldn't be downplayed, even though this terrorist group has suffered considerable losses in Syria and Iraq, it still represents a major challenge for the international community. The defeat of the pseudo-state that ISIS warlords managed to create in the Middle East, forced them to recognize that what they now have is a caliphate without territory to control, that is why the Islamic State is getting increasingly engaged in various forms of asymmetric warfare. The above mentioned official has also stated that after the liquidation of the main forces of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the militants started to relocate their forces into the territory of other countries, including Libya, Egypt, Somalia.

According to a series of publications in the Turkish newspaper Haber Turk, ISIS militants represent a real threat these days to a number of Caucasian and Central Asian states, while providing a reference to various Turkish military officials. Turkish journalists are convinced that the main focus of ISIS these days is the strip of the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, as the warlords of the Islamic State remain convinced that by increasing ISIS military presence in northern Afghanistan will allow them to expand their influence across the region. That is why small groups of militants and mercenaries keep abandoning combat zones in Iraq and Syria on the daily basis, to be secretly transferred to the northern provinces of Afghanistan.

It's nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact number of redeployed radicals. According to a report presented by the Military Balance, there's no more than 800 militants, yet Afghan security officers argue that there's well over 10 thousand ISIS militants deployed in Afghanistan, and they keep coming. The backbone of this force is built of ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kirghiz, Uighurs and other Central Asian nationals, who originally a part of the so-called. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or fought in the ranks of Turkic brigades in Syria and Iraq. That is why those militants were able to freely travel the states of their origin, namely Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, all of which share a common border with Afghanistan.

Central Asia happens to be a home ground for most of these militants, since back in the days when ISIS was on the rise it came to this region with the sole goal of raising new terrorist formations that would become a part of ISIS. Thus, according to unofficial reports, up to two hundred people have come from Turkmenistan to the Islamic State, another three hundred came from Uzbekistan, with Kyrgyzstan adding another five hundred militants. The latter has had its own struggle with religious fanatics for a while, that have been particularly active in the cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad.

However, experts believe that Turkmenistan faces the great threat out of all of the Central Asian states, as its armed forces remain the weakest in the region, with no modern military equipment being imported by Ashgabat, and no military exercises carried to increase the fighting capability of its forces. That is why this state is the least capable of addressing the threat that ISIS presents to the region.

However, the things do not look good in Tajikistan either, that has a slightly more armed forces that are tasked with the goal of guarding an extensive border this state shares with Afghanistan. The only remedy to this situation is a five thousand men task force of the Russian armed forces that keeps the border locked down. The request to allow Russian troops to patrol Afghan-Tajik border was voiced by Russia's president Vladimir Putin during his recent talks with his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rahmon. According to the report released by the UN Refugee Agency, some 840 Tajiks have been engaged in armed conflicts across the Middle East. However, as the latest attack on foreign tourists in Dangara shows, the lingering presence of the ISIS terrorists on the Tajik territory poses a threat both to the population of Tajikistan and to numerous foreign tourists, the number of which exceeded 900 thousand people in the first half of 2018 alone.

Last May, a letter of Ministry of foreign affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the US Embassy in that country was leaked to the Internet. The content of this letter revealed how concerned Tashkent is with the rapidly growing number of radical militants coming to this country from Syria and Iraq.

The letter contains a formal plea to "strengthen the cooperation between intelligence agencies of the two states," but its wording leaves no room for doubt that Tashkent is getting frustrated with Washington over the inability of the latter to keep the situation in Afghanistan under control, which leads to an increase in terrorist activities in neighboring states.

The main goal of the terrorists of the ISIS in northern Afghanistan is the creation of an armed forced capable of conducting combat operations in a situation when it won't have air, heavy weapons and artillery superiority, remains truly disturbing. It is also possible to exclude their desire to create hotbeds of armed confrontation in the immediate vicinity of the state border line of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in order to exert political pressure on the leaders of those states by carrying terrorist attacks or forceful seizure of military and civilian target across both sides of the border of Afghanistan and the above mentioned states.
Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook."