Vladimir Putin has proposed setting up a Nato-style joint task force of post-Soviet states to secure the borders of Central Asia amid fears of Taliban \u201cspillover\u201d from Afghanistan.
\nA fresh sign of the Russian president\u2019s new military assertiveness, the deployment raises the possibility of Russian and allied troops being deployed along Tajikistan\u2019s 800-mile border with Afghanistan, and Moscow tightening its influence of governments in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
\nIt comes a day after Barack Obama said American troops would stay in Afghanistan for at least two more years \u2013 itself a tacit admission that the Afghan government is unable to tackle the threat of a resurgent Taliban alone.
\n“The situation there [in Afghanistan] is genuinely close to critical,” Mr Putin told a summit of former Soviet states in Burabay, Kazakhstan. \u201cTerrorists of different stripes are gaining more influence and do not hide their plans for further expansion. One of their aims is the break into the Central Asian region.\u201d
\nFrom left to right, Heads of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, pose for a photo during a Commonwealth of Independent States, former Soviet republics, summit in Astana, Kazakhstan
\nFrom left to right, Heads of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, pose for a photo during a Commonwealth of Independent States, former Soviet republics, summit in Astana, Kazakhstan Photo: AP
\nWhile details of the joint task force have not been released, Russia\u2019s relatively modern and powerful military necessarily form the core of any force put together.
\nRussian troops were responsible for guarding Tajikistan\u2019s border with Afghanistan until 2005, when they pulled out following the expiry of the treaty that had kept them there.
\nMr Putin\u2019s comments follower earlier announcements that Russia would beef up its military presence in Tajikistan, an impoverished former Soviet state that borders Afghanistan.
\nThe Kremlin is said to have become particularly concerned after the Taliban assault on the city of Kunduz, not far from the border with Uzbekistan in northern Afghanistan, last month.
\nTaliban fighters occupied Kunduz for three days before being expelled by Afghan forces backed by American airstrikes, one of which destroyed a hospital operated by Doctor\u2019s Without Borders.
\nRussia and other former Soviet states have become increasingly alarmed at the prospect of spillover from Afghanistan after the American withdrawal.
\nMr Putin said on Friday there are believed to be \u201c5000 to 7000\u201d citizens of former Soviet states fighting with the Isil terror group in Syria and Iraq.
\nA number of recent incidents have highlighted the threat of radical Islam in the former Soviet space.
\nA Taliban-linked group last month released a propaganda video showing an ethnic Uzbek man from Kyrgyzstan carrying out a suicide truck bombing in Syria.
\nBabur Israilov, 21, was filmed weeping as he climbed into an explosives-packed armoured personnel carrier during an Al-Nusra assault near Aleppo in September. Relatives have said Mr Israilov was radicalised while working as a migrant labourer in Russia.
\nMeanwhile, police in Kyrgyzstan said they had killed one of four Islamists who escaped from a prison in Bishkek, the country\u2019s capital, on Monday. The escapees killed three prison guards during the breakout.
\nPolice said Daniyar Kadyraliev, a convicted terrorist and a reported member of the banned Jaishul-Mahdi Islamist extremist group, was shot dead in a suburb of Bishkek on Friday morning when he resisted arrest.
\nBarack Obama on Thursday dropped long-held plans to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan before the end of his presidency in 2017.
\nThe current American force of 9,800 troops will remain in place in Afghanistan until the end of 2016, before dropping down to 5,500, Mr Obama said.
\nThe Taliban responded to Mr Obama\u2019s announcement by threatening more attacks on American personnel and installations.
\n“Maintaining American troops in Afghanistan can in no way slow down the rapid process of our Jihad and struggle,” the Islamist militant group said in a statement, they said on Friday.
\nWhile Mr Putin\u2019s and Mr Obama\u2019s recent comments reflect a shared recognition of the threat posed by the Taliban and other radical groups in central Asia, experts said cooperation on the issue is likely to be stymied by mistrust and clashing geopolitical interests.
\n\u201cThe West simply doesn\u2019t trust Mr Putin. Just as in Syria he has said he is fighting against Isil, but in reality is fighting to preserve Bashar Assad\u2019s regime, in central Asia they will suspect him of using the threat of Islamism as an excuse to create a zone that will be eventually be recognised as a Russian sphere of influence,\u201d said Arkady Dubnov, a Moscow based expert in Central Asian affairs.
\nThe move may face some push back from regional rulers, like Emomali Rahmon, the president of Tajikistan, and Islam Karimov, the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan, for similar reasons.
\nAbdugani Mamadazimov, a Tajik political analyst, said the government in Dushanbe would be likely to resist the idea of Russian and allied troops one again assuming responsibility for the country\u2019s borders.
\n“For Russia to have a base in the country is one thing. But the border is a matter of national sovereignty for the Tajik government,” he told AFP.
\nMr Dubnov, who said Mr Rahmon had helped fuel the threat from radicalisation with short-sighted domestic policies, said Central Asian governments would have little choice but to accept Russian assistance and the consequent increased dependence on Moscow.
\n\u201cThey need Russian help to address this challenge; but that doesn\u2019t mean they actually want it,\u201d he said.
\n\u2022 US suspects Turkey shot down Russian drone aircraft near Syrian border, official says<\/p>\n
By Roland Oliphant, Moscow9:42PM BST 16 Oct 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vladimir Putin has proposed setting up a Nato-style joint task force of post-Soviet states to secure the borders of Central Asia amid fears of Taliban \u201cspillover\u201d from Afghanistan. A fresh sign of the Russian president\u2019s new military assertiveness, the deployment raises the possibility of Russian and allied troops being deployed along Tajikistan\u2019s 800-mile border with Afghanistan, and Moscow tightening its… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}