"IG" aimed at the CIS

On February 4, the governor of one of the northern provinces of Afghanistan announced the concentration of the Islamic State militants on the border with Tajikistan, the supporters of the Khalifa Ibrahim (al-Baghdadi) set a goal-to create a new support center for the Islamic State (IG) outside the Middle East-now in Central Asia. There is no need to count on Afghanistan Emiram. The story with Al-Qaeda, when Osama Ben Laden and his Arab associates until the early 2000s could calmly use the hospitality of Afghan Taliban, will not happen again. The emissaries of the “caliph” Ibrahim and their few supporters in Afghanistan now have to survive in the brutal struggle not only with the army and police of the Kabul government of Ashraf Gani, but also with the Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar.

In early February, information agencies transferred an alarming reports about the accumulation of Kunduz in the Afghan province of Kunduz, bordering Tajikistan, about 1000 militants, presumably related to IG. However, it is unlikely that you have to talk about a thoroughly preparing invasion of invasion of Tajikistan. Rather, we are talking about the “Kunduz boiler”, in which one of the best commanders of the Afghan National Army (ANA) is trying to drive armed Islamists - brigade General Zalmai Visa. In two weeks of fighting, the soldiers destroyed about 90 militants, about 140 Islamists were injured. Among them there are both the Taliban and the supporters of the IG.

Fleeing from the blows of the brigade general, Islamists can try to break into Turkmenistan or Tajikistan. In this sense, the tactics of Afghan fighters “IG” do not differ from the tricks of the Taliban in South Afghanistan, where over the past 13 years, the militants of the mullah Omar were saved from the special operations of the NATO and Afghan military in Pakistan.

The supporters of the IG on the territory of Afghanistan (and this is not only Pashtuns and Afghan Tajiks, but also military migrants from the republics of Central Asia, Arab countries and the North Caucasus) today are tight. The country's public opinion treats them negatively (according to Afghan experts, no more than 5 % of Afghans sympathize with IG). The fighters are not able to wage war at once on two fronts. One thing remains - collective combat emigration in one of the countries neighboring Afghanistan, and, judging by geography, this is not Pakistan.

Emirs of the IG emirs can cause Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. The first is because it is considered the least militarized country in the Central Asian region (and, therefore, incapable of long-term armed resistance). The second is due to the growth of protest moods and an increasingly critical attitude of the population to the ruling clan of Emomali Rahmon.

The final choice for the IG will seem to make the political elites of completely different states applying for dominance in Central Asia. For example, Russia. For Moscow, the appearance of the horror score “IG” on the shores of the Amu Darya was a real gift - and an important argument in the conviction of the decrepit leaders of the former Soviet republics in the need for a speedy accession to the new integration projects of the Kremlin. After all, the alternative to these projects may no longer be an American or NATO defense umbrella, but the “Islamic state” with its extremely convincing aesthetics of terror.