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Wahhabi Underground in Central Asia

By Alina Kantor

No one shall deny that exactly oil-bearing regions of the planet most frequently face the threats of terrorist organizations. Even stable states of Central Asia are involved into a deadly turnover of criminal oil money, international crime and alien ideological ideas. And here we can evidently trace the skillful arm of a puppeteer, who patiently for dozens of years has been trained new stuff for Wahhabi movement, engaging into this process criminal and the power bodies. And this all has the purpose to repeat  Benghazi scenario in the day X, to proclaim a total hunt on terrorism, in order to capture the fields reach with oil and gas eventually. 

 

Regarding Kazakhstan, the state leading in Central Asia, the only state where for more than 20 years of sovereign development there have been no civil wars, in ethnic conflicts. Even here these threats have escalated recently. Typical is that the splash of terrorists activity takes place exactly in the oil region of the republic, in its western part, adjoining Caspian Sea. 

 

Systemic efforts to undermine stability in Kazakhstan have been made for more than ten years in Kazakhstan. They are made flexibly. And if during the first years terrorist and extremist groups used I their activity the resources of non-governmental organizations, than consequently, when they were blocked, they started to knit with crime and power. 

 

A bright example are the Ryskaliyevs brothers. One of them headed Atyrau region, the main oil-bearing region of the country, the second one achieved the post of a member of the Parliament. They discovered the ground for a new type of criminal activity – knitted criminality with the ideology of terrorism. 

 

The Ryskaliyevs were in charge of 2 “brigades” of organized criminal groups. One of them, famous as the criminal gang “Makatovskiye” under the leadership of other brothers – Ismukhanovs, closely contacted terrorist underground. The roles among the Ismakhanovs were distributed as follows: the older brother headed the group itself. He arranged robberies, stealings, people kidnapping, murdering. And the youngest maintained close contacts with terrorists, including Meyrambek Makulbekov (religious alias – Abdulaziz), who was the emissary of an international terrorist organization “Islamic Jihad Union”, which is a part of Al-Qaeda.

 

B. Ismukhanov and Abdulaziz with the support of other underground members established a religious union “Darussalam” for recruitment into Wahhabi movement. They also participated in founding of the “Al-Haq” foundation, which included the funds to fight the Kuffar in Afghanistan. The assisted to build a mosque At-Takua in the village Zhumysker. 

 

By the way, it was exactly Bergey Ryskaliyev, being the administration of Aturay region, granted a piece of land to build the mosque, which eventually has become the center of terrorists training. 

 

The spiritual leader and imam at the mosque was some H. Abduzhapparov, whose sermons were distinct with very extremist vies and calls for Kazakhstan to join Islamic Caliphate, and to lead Jihad. In 2006 he migrated to Saudi Arabia. But his efforts were taken up by his younger brother B. Ismukhanov. He continued to spread actively the ideology of non-conventional Islam with the support of the Head of the region. 

 

B. Ismakhanov lacked only people with appropriate religious education. The Akim of the region Bergey Ryskaliyev also solved this problem. He financed the forwarding for training in Egypt and Saudi Arabia for a group of people, which included the members of their terrorist group. 

 

Recruitment of new adepts at the mosque was performed by the religious union Darussalam . And although the organization was closed in 2007, the seeds of confrontation soon flourished. The mentees from the number of At-Takua parish people created a covered terrorist group Kazakh Islamic Jihad and started involving into it other citizens of the region. Between 2008 and 2011 43 people joined the terrorists. They were split into three troops  Ittihad al-Muslimin, the Ten and Li Group. 

 

The participants of one of these three groups should have had to attack the military unit 2016 of Border Guard of Kazakhstan. Also they planned the attack on the weapons warehouse. But the plan failed. The organizers were arrested by police for robbery of a food store. Except for that they had planned a series of other acts of terrorism, which also were prevented.

 

In April 2012 the specialized interdistrict Court for criminal cases of Atyrau region announced the sentence for 42 defendants, members of the three terrorist groups. And already in August the Head of the region Bergey Ryskaliyev was dismissed. In order to protect themselves from prosecution the brothers incited society to defend them. But when the real scopes of their criminal activity were revealed and had only one option – to escape.

 

Interesting that the brothers Ryskaliyevs escaped just the time when the law enforcement agencies of Kazakhstan finally uncovered the underground and held a series of special missions to eliminate the terrorist groups. It was a real war. Special services eliminated the hitmen. And the hitmen replied with attacks on law-enforcement bodies. 

 

Eventually almost all Wahhabis were arrested, and a part was exterminated. Al-Qaeda emissary Abdulaziz today is imprisoned. By that time he managed to leave his tracks also in the south of the country.

 

But what about the brothers Ryskaliyevs? According to recent information they are hiding in London, and this gives definite thoughts. It turns out that Great Britain once again covers criminals and terrorists. And here a logical question arises, can the Ryskaliyevs brothers be pawns in the global fight for resources, which is held by England today? No one would like to believe it. On the other side it has become too often that expressly criminal persons get asylum in the United Kingdom. Maybe it is the time to take a thought about it?

 

12.07.2013