An Offer they just Can’t Refuse?

   It’s not all about energy resources when it comes to Russian interests in its former Central Asian republics. As this RFE/RL article reports, the Russians are deploying further troops to their air base at Kant outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. Reportedly housing some 400 personnel currently, the base has a U.S. “rival”, the 1000 [...]

Joint LFAR: Energy Security in the Former Soviet Union

Read joint LFAR here: energy-security-fsu.pdf
Authors: Aimee Blanchard, Shelly Downes, Yana Feldman, Linda Popova
With an enormous sigh of relief and satisfaction, I’m happy to announce that I’ve just finished my second intel course. The course focused on written communication in intelligence and explored various reporting formats: INTSUMs (intelligence summaries), SFARs (short form analytical reports), writing under [...]

LFAR: Energy Security and the “New Great Game” in Central Asia: the Case of Kyrgyzstan

Executive Summary: The interest of the great powers and emerging competitors such as China and India in the resource rich Central Asian states are very likely to continue and increase over the next 12 months. Kyrgyzstan is likely to benefit from increased interest in its hydroelectric sector, attracting foreign direct investment from Russia, China, [...]

INTSUM: Privatization of the Kyrgyz Electricity Industry Likely to Hit Hardest the Poor

 IWPR (Bishkek) 25 January 2008
Plans to privatize Kyrgyzstan’s electricity industry are under way, after President Bakiyev’s statement that the only way to bring more money into the sector is through privatization. He and his officials believe that Kyrgyzstan can become self-sufficient in energy as privatization would help with renovating derelict Soviet equipment and with the [...]

Speculations about Nuclear Cargo Detained in Kyrgyzstan Continue

Speculations about the origin and destination of the nuclear cargo discovered on a Tajik train at the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border are continuing as IAEA has launched a formal request to the Kyrgyz government to cooperate with the investigation. RFL just published another article, in which a US expert on nuclear proliferation and terrorism talks about the [...]

Code word: Tom & Jerry

Further to my posts on the growing of the Hizb ut-Tahrir’s following in Southern Kyrgyzstan, here’s an article the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) just published on the spread of Islamist propaganda in the form of CDs and videotapes (alias Tom  & Jerry) by one Muhammad Amin – a passionate supporter of the [...]

INTSUM: Afghanistan – a New Migration Destination for Kyrgyz Workers

While the majority of Kyrgyz economic migrants still seek better opportunities in the booming economies of northern neighbors Russia and Kazakhstan, some are turning instead to conflict-ridden Afghanistan, where higher security risks are compensated with higher wages. A major source of employment for south-bound Kyrgyz migrants are US private contractors in Afghanistan. The US State [...]

INTSUM: Radionuclide Cargo Intercepted at Kyrgyz-Uzbek Border

On 31 December 2007 border control officials at the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border intercepted a cargo with radiation exceeding 1000 mR/hr on a Tajik train, which originated in Kazakhstan and was heading toward Iran. The cargo’s origin itself is unknown. The train passed undetected through three border control checks before Uzbek authorities detected the dangerous cargo and [...]

“War on Terror” – Central Asia Style

A BBC video report on the rising growth of the Hizb ut-Tahrir in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan sees the tightening of religious policies and the banning of this Islamic movement as a way of the authoritarian governments of Bakiyev and Karimov to put a gag on opposition.

SFAR 1: Impacts on Kyrgyzstan Government Religious Policies in the Aftermath of the 16 December 2007 Elections

Executive Summary:
One of the most difficult challenges the newly elected government of President Bakiyev is facing is the rising Islamic radicalization and the threat it poses to secular institutions in Kyrgyzstan. It is highly likely that the government policy of tightening control over religious institutions and education will result in short-term stabilization of secular state [...]