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U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2004 - Kazakhstan

After the July 30 suicide bombings in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the Government of Kazakhstan aggressively sought leads and prosecuted individuals involved with extremist groups targeting Western interests in the region. The Government's cooperation and timeliness in sharing information with the United States has greatly improved since 2003. The Government is pursuing legislation to make banking laws more transparent to facilitate terrorist finance investigations. In October, Kazakhstan, along with Belarus, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia joined the Eurasia Group, a regional anti-money laundering organization or Financial Action Task Force-style regional body. Kazakhstan, along with China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which established a Regional Antiterrorism Center in Tashkent in June.

In October, the Supreme Court recognized al-Qa'ida, the East Turkistan Islamic Party, the Kurdish People's Congress, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) as terrorist groups, a decision that prohibits them from any activity in the country. Lacking legislative means for prosecuting suspected terrorists, the Government must use other provisions of its criminal code. In 2004, Kazakhstan arrested and tried more than 60 individuals suspected of participation in Hizb ut-Tahrir activities. They were prosecuted under the criminal code for "participating in activities of illegal organizations" (although Hizb ut-Tahrir has not been banned by name in Kazakhstan) and "inciting social, national, tribal, racial, or religious hatred." Several thousand members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist political movement advocating the establishment of a borderless, theocratic Islamic state throughout the entire Muslim world, are present in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as well as in countries outside the Central Asian region. The US Government has no evidence that Hizb ut-Tahrir has committed any terrorist acts, but the group's radical anti-US and anti-Semitic ideology is sympathetic to acts of violence against the United States and its allies, and it has publicly called on Muslims to travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight Coalition forces.

In November, the Government announced that Kazakhstani security agencies had detained leaders and accomplices of the Central Asia Mujahedeen Jamaat (more frequently referred to in English as the Islamic Jihad Group). More than a dozen suspects were detained, including four women who were allegedly preparing to be suicide bombers. This group was alleged to have links to the July 30 bombings in Tashkent.

Topics: Terrorism,