Tajikistan is a breeding ground for terrorists, but also a friend of Putin

At least four suspects in the terrorist attack in a concert hall in Moscow are from Tajikistan, according to Russia. The Central Asian country has long been a breeding ground for terrorists, experts say.

Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin accuses not Tajikistan but Ukraine and its allies of helping the terrorists. That fits better with his narrative that the real threat comes from the West. Russia also maintains good ties with Tajikistan.

Not long after the attack, the Islamic State (IS) announced that it was behind it. Experts and Western intelligence sources call that claim credible. America warned earlier this month that a terrorist attack in Moscow could be imminent. Putin dismissed it as Western propaganda intended to “destabilize” Russia.

Specifically, this concerns ISIS-K, the branch of the terrorist group active mainly in Afghanistan, but also in neighboring countries such as Tajikistan. The K stands for Khorasan, the ancient Persian name for the region. When IS lost its caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2019, ISIS-K, among others, actually gained strength. That group may now be targeting Russia because the country was fighting IS in Syria.

Muscovites react in defeat. Some people think that Ukraine is behind the attack:

Terror groups are recruiting heavily in Tajikistan, according to experts. “Over the past decade, Tajikistan has become the third largest country in recruitment for ISIS and terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq,” said Central Asian Studies lecturer Edward Lemon (Texas A&M University). “About 2,000 Tajiks went there. Last year, Tajiks played a leading role in attacks in Iran and Afghanistan and in failed plans in Austria. And of course in this attack, the biggest of them all.”

Particularly because of the living conditions in the country, IS is an attractive alternative for many Tajiks, says Lemon. “Tajikistan is one of the poorest countries in Asia and the poorest country in the former Soviet Union. Many people have a very difficult life there.”

“It is no coincidence that Tajiks in particular are being recruited,” agrees Peter Leonard, journalist at the Eurasianet platform. “That will not happen, and I want to emphasize that, because Tajiks themselves have a strong tendency towards this. But the conditions in which they live and have to live make them suitable for recruitment.”

Mass migration to Russia

Tajiks also appear susceptible to Russia’s lure: due to poor economic conditions, at least one million to two million people emigrated to Russia for work. That is almost one in five inhabitants.

No country in the world is so dependent on the money earned by migrants. Roughly half of national income consists of money that migrants send back to their families. The mass migration undermines the social structure in the country, which makes people even more susceptible to radicalization.

Conversely, Russia also benefits greatly from ties with Tajikistan. The country is a member of the Organization for the Collective Security Treaty, a military alliance of Russia and five other states in the former Soviet Union. Russia has stationed soldiers in the country and is also recruiting Tajiks for the war in Ukraine.

Putin would much rather point to Ukraine and the West as guilty of the attack in Moscow than to Tajikistan. He acknowledged in a speech yesterday that the perpetrators are “radical Islamists”, but he also said: “We are interested in who the originator is. The terrible crime is a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting with us since 2014 country. The neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv is their means. And Nazis, as is well known, never hesitated to use the most inhumane means to achieve their goals.”

Putin provided no evidence for his claims. Kyiv denies any involvement and calls the Russian president’s suggestion “absurd”.

Putin does not seem to want to acknowledge that he misjudged the American warning and that his security services were therefore unable to prevent the attack. By pointing to Ukraine, even the attack fits within his narrative that the West is targeting Russia.

In this way he also spares his ally Tajikistan. In the meantime, Russian investigators are in the country to question relatives of the suspects in the attack.

The hundreds of thousands of Tajiks in Russia are going to have a hard time, teacher Lemon expects. “We are already seeing an increase in xenophobia with migrants from Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries being targeted. The Tajik community in Russia is bearing even more brunt.”