BACKGROUND: The bombings in the London subway on July 7 and the ensuing foiled attempts at new bombings on July 21 focused global attention on the terrorist threat in Great Britain. But we should not ignore their lessons and implicit warning for the governments of Central Asia that do not command anywhere near the police experience and resources for adequate surveillance and monitoring, let alone suppression, of organized terrorist threats. For example, we can see from British reactions an increase in police monitoring and surveillance as well as heightened restrictions on the public practice of Islam in Great Britain. Accordingly we should expect enhanced supervision of politics in general and of religion in particular in Central Asian regimes, and not just in Uzbekistan which appears to be the most threatened by terrorism. Indeed, we can already see new restrictions being placed on the preaching of Islam and on NGOs in Kazakhstan as well as an intense campaign to saturate the Uzbek media with the government\'s view of the Andijan uprising. That particular campaign also goes hand in hand with increased repression at home against dissidents. And freed from the presence of an American base and accompanying lectures, Islam Karimov will likely go further to crush any outpost of opposition and label it fundamentalist. Similar trends to suppress political opposition are also discernible in Azerbaijan. These moves suggest the first lesson learned by Central Asian regimes. If attacks on this scale could take place in a city as heavily policed as London that has been subject for so long a time to comprehensive police surveillance, they could also be carried out elsewhere and probably more easily. This fact alone should induce governments to enact more effective measures to increase their intelligence, police, surveillance, and military capabilities against terrorism. Thus we may actually see more cooperation among police, intelligence, and military forces of Central Asian states and the security organizations there: the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO)and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Undoubtedly much of this cooperation, if it actually materializes, will receive little publicity. But it will probably be discernible in its implementation of greater policing of those states, often with foreign assistance. And it will also be discernible in the amount of increasing political repression that we can expect to see. A second lesson concerns the strategic lessons that may be drawn by Al-Qaeda and its associated organizations, including those in Central Asia. These attacks could presage a series of attacks against European and other states associated with the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Central Asian or South Caucasian states. Their aim would surely be the destabilization and ultimate overthrow of these governments. Al-Qaeda, by its lights, might have good reason to suspect that sufficiently strong terror offensives, if they can be organized, could bring about such outcomes. Whether or not the Spanish government fell in 2004 due to the attacks in Madrid, Bin Laden and his cohorts clearly believe it did and, therefore, that Europe cannot withstand a terrorist offensive. Thus authorities in Denmark, Italy, and Poland now expect terrorism to come to them. But Bin Laden, Zawahiri and others might also believe that in Central Asia or Afghanistan, a well planned terror campaign could also obtain comparable results. Third, the bombings in London and Sharm el Sheikh on July 22-23 reveal Al-Qaeda’s and its associated entities’ international scope and their continuing ability to recruit, organize, train, plan attacks, and maintain tight operational security. The bombers on July 7 were connected not just to Pakistani Madrassahs, but also to Egyptian citizens and to Palestinian terrorists. More such connections may be revealed over time. But we also know that Central Asian organizations like the IMU or Hizb ut-Tahrir are not dead and that Central Asian oppositionists and terrorists are in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. We also know that fundraising for both North Caucasian and Central Asian groups is taking place in Europe. So the global network of Islamic terrorism continues despite foreign pressure.

IMPLICATIONS: Pakistan’s continuing role as a center for terrorist recruitment, indoctrination, and training also must command our attention. Once again the Pakistani government says that it will go after these groups. But, as London showed, Pakistan’s Madrassahs remain a center for indoctrination, recruitment, training, and organization of terrorists, indicating the insufficiency of past Pakistani policies to deal with Islamic terrorism. Destruction of this network must become the urgent object of unremitting and concerted global pressure. This means more than forcing these schools to register with the government. Ultimately it also means subjecting the entire Pakistani state, military, and intelligence apparats to thorough housecleaning and reform. The attacks in London, Sharm el Sheikh and recently foiled attacks in Turkey remind us that Al-Qaeda believes itself at war with the rest of the world—and not just over Iraq. Consequently it remains a viable, strategic organization whose leaders, Bin Laden and Zawahiri, are executing a strategic plan. We may or may not understand it or grasp its strategic logic, but it appears quite clear that to them and to terrorists everywhere there is such a logic and those cells may understand it or may be free to choose targets of their own choice within its operational framework. In other words, there is no reason to believe that Central Asia, the South Caucasus, or Russia may have little to worry about. Many experts on Central Asia in America worry that Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have irretrievably slipped onto the trajectory of a failing state that could be vulnerable to forceful threats. The leaders of those governments and of their neighbors have every reason to be concerned that this could spill over to their territory or emanate from it given the large number of Uzbek refugees forced out of Uzbekistan. Indeed, in 2004 Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan each made known their apprehensions that Uzbekistan was exporting both terrorists and the threat of terrorism to them by its draconian policies. And those policies are unlikely to change after Andijan and the SCO’s Astana Summit.

CONCLUSIONS: This has been a year of increasingly rapid change and shocks to the systems of Central Asian governments and they have responded by seeking more stability and by rejecting calls for greater democratization, with the possible exception of Kyrgyzstan. But even there we may have seen a replacement of elites masquerading as a “democratic revolution”. External pressure to reform seems to these regimes to be an invitation for terrorists and fundamentalists, whom they regard as one and the same, to replace them. Therefore we are likely to see increased police persecution, and police powers in the hands of the state to avert such outcomes. While Kazakhstan is attempting socio-economic reforms as well to prevent the outbreak of a large mass opposition, the other governments there do not have the means to conduct such a policy, even if they were so inclined. And in foreign affairs, the eviction of U.S. forces from their base in Karshi Khanabad suggests a severe diminution of American leverage on behalf of reform both in Uzbekistan and elsewhere. The confluence of these trends over time might yet paradoxically bring about exactly what these governments most fear i.e. scenarios like those of London and Madrid. London has again shown that it “can take it” as it did in 1940-41. But can we be sure about states like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan?

AUTHOR’S BIO: Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Army, Defense Department or Government.