{"id":29571,"date":"2024-04-18T13:26:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T13:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/18\/3-reasons-this-country-is-a-top-isis-recruiting-ground\/"},"modified":"2024-04-18T13:26:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T13:26:12","slug":"3-reasons-this-country-is-a-top-isis-recruiting-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/18\/3-reasons-this-country-is-a-top-isis-recruiting-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Reasons This Country Is a Top ISIS Recruiting Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/15\/multimedia\/15tajikistan-terror-mini\/15tajikistan-terror-02-gbwc-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"3 Reasons This Country Is a Top ISIS Recruiting Ground\" title=\"3 Reasons This Country Is a Top ISIS Recruiting Ground\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the past year, jihadists from Tajikistan have been involved in an unusually high number of terrorist attacks or foiled plots linked to the Islamic State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The suspects in the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/25\/us\/politics\/moscow-attack-isis.html\" title=\"\">storming of a concert hall<\/a> near Moscow last month were Tajiks. Before that, Tajiks staged bloody assaults in Iran and Turkey, while several schemes in Europe said to involve Tajiks were thwarted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hundreds of men from Tajikistan \u2014 a small, impoverished country in Central Asia controlled by an authoritarian president \u2014 have joined an affiliate of the Islamic State in Afghanistan known as the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/22\/us\/politics\/isis-k-moscow-attack.html\" title=\"\">Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K<\/a>, analysts say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They point to three main reasons Tajiks are vulnerable to recruitment.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-75ce2def\">Poverty Fuels Discontent<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tajikistan ranks among the world\u2019s poorest countries, which drives millions of workers to seek better lives elsewhere. In a country of 10 million people, a majority of working men, estimated at more than two million, toil abroad at any given time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Most migrants end up in Russia, where rampant discrimination, low wages, poor prospects and isolation make some susceptible to jihadist recruiters. The mothers of the suspects in the concert hall attack, for example, said their sons faced problems in Russia such as earning salaries too low to pay rent or to afford the myriad permits needed to drive a taxi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-24284755\">A Dictator\u2019s Iron Rule<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The country was embroiled in a brutal civil war from 1992 to 1997. President Emomali Rahmon, 71, has ruled Tajikistan since 1994 and extended his term for life. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The civil war ended with an agreement to allow some representation for opposition groups, including the moderate Islamic Renaissance Party. But that group was declared an extremist organization in 2015, and opposition leaders were killed, jailed or driven into exile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As Tajikistan has become an increasingly authoritarian state, the government has exerted ever tighter control over how Islam is practiced, also pushing some Tajiks to extremist views.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-9ycfei eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-5d0b472a\">No Religious Freedom<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Curbs on religious freedom include waging a rigorous campaign against public signs of piety. Beards are sometimes forcibly shaved in public or hijabs torn off. A powerful Committee on Religion, Regulation of Traditions, Celebrations and Ceremonies oversees every facet of worship, including building mosques and printing books. Men under 18 and women are banned from praying in mosques, while group religious instruction at home is also forbidden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The combination of poverty, authoritarian rule and lack of religious freedom has created a fertile environment for a calculated online recruitment campaign targeting Tajik men. That effort glorifies the exploits of those killed fighting for ISIS-K, which has adopted the ambitions of the Islamic State to battle the West.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Read more about the relationship between ISIS and Tajikistan <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/18\/world\/europe\/tajikistan-isis-k-terrorism.html\" title=\"\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/18\/world\/europe\/isis-k-tajikistan.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the past year, jihadists from Tajikistan have been involved in an unusually high number of terrorist attacks or foiled plots linked to the Islamic State. The suspects in the storming of a concert hall near Moscow last month were Tajiks. Before that, Tajiks staged bloody assaults in Iran and Turkey, while several schemes in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/15\/multimedia\/15tajikistan-terror-mini\/15tajikistan-terror-02-gbwc-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[643,9290,11098,2452,7883,1846],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29571"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29573,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29571\/revisions\/29573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}