The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, officially called Harakat ul Islamiyyah Özbekistan, was founded in exile in 1996, in part because peaceful opposition to the authoritarian regime in Tashkent was no longer possible. The IMU first gained international attention when it carried out raids in the mountainous border regions of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the summers of 1999 and 2000. At its zenith, the group had approximately three thousand members, mainly Uzbeks and Tajiks. Until late 2001, the group was led by Juma Namangani and Tahir Yuldash and operated from a number of guerrilla bases in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

The Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban deprived the IMU of its bases in Afghanistan. The group's military leader, Juma Namangani, was killed during an aerial raid on an IMU compound. Although the details of reports on the whereabouts and activities of surviving IMU members vary widely, Tahir Yuldash and 150 to 200 hardcore followers are believed to be in the Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan.

Although Tahir Yuldash continues to appear in occasional video messages in which he refers to the IMU, his group seems hardly operational. Its core has been absorbed into a wider nexus with Taliban and al-Qaeda efforts to fight a cross-border guerrilla war against the Afghan government and international forces. While figures vary, there are reports that the IMU’s numbers have been boosted by refugees fleeing religious persecution in Uzbekistan.

In South Waziristan, the impact of the IMU's presence transcends their actual number because Yuldash and IMU fighters have become embroiled in local tribal politics. The presence of Arab elements of the International Islamic Front in the area has also influenced the IMU to adopt tactics such as suicide bombings and international jihadi discourse.

Apart from the group around Tahir Yuldash, some three hundred former IMU fighters who are disappointed with Yuldash’s close affiliation with al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front are believed to be in various other parts of Pakistan. An additional one hundred former IMU guerrillas and their families are in Iran. Little is known about the majority of IMU militants who survived the military campaign of late 2001. They are thought either to have dispersed to third countries, regrouped in smaller numbers or returned by will or force to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The IJU: an international network

It is in this context that the emergence of the Islamic Jihad Union must be situated. The IJU or Islami Cihad Ittehadi first received international attention after several bombings in Tashkent and other Uzbek cities in the spring of 2004 left 49 dead. The regime attributed the attacks to the IJU and the IMU although it is unclear whether responsibility for the attacks was ever claimed. The lack of clarity surrounding these events has raised doubts about the credibility of the IJU's alleged link to the IMU. Some have dismissed the IJU as a mere fabrication of the Uzbek intelligence services.

Judging from its online presence and video messages, the Islamic Jihad Union is not a myth, but rather an umbrella organization of small autonomous cells of varying strength and effectiveness. The IJU's known leaders are Abu Yahya Mohammed Fatih and Sohail Mansur, both of Uzbek origin and both former IMU members. Fatih featured in a four minute video message posted online in late 2007.

The IJU's suspected base of operations is North Waziristan, another tribal area on the Pakistan-Afghan border where Tahir Yuldash and his entourage are believed to have some presence. The IJU's area of operations includes adjacent provinces of Afghanistan, including Khost, where German-born IJU member Cüneit Ciftci recently carried out suicide attack on a government checkpoint. The attack was documented in an online video by As-Sahab, a production firm affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

There are no reliable figures on the numerical strength of the group. Photos in circulation show combat cells of five to a dozen of people, which analysts say is likely to be the IJU’s basic organisational unit. Despite the Uzbek and IMU background of its alleged leaders, the IJU has a strong Turkish element in its known international support and recruitment networks. Of the IJU-associated individuals arrested in Europe, none were from Uzbekistan. In that sense, the IJU’s composition seems to be more international than that of the IMU.

In militant Turkish circles, there is a solidarity reflex with the plight of coreligionists in the North Caucasus and Uzbekistan. Both of these areas were explicitly mentioned by IJU commander Fatih in online interviews from 2007. An anti-imperialist dimension also attracts international fighters, including recent Western converts to Islam, who seek to counter what they view as a Western-led campaign to control natural resources in the Islamic world. The Anglo-American presence in Afghanistan and the secular regime in Uzbekistan are viewed as cases in point.

A threat to Europe?

Although they share the same enemy, the same Salafi ideology and genealogical links, the IMU and the IJU are two different groups. The current connections between them are more a matter of individuals and ad hoc co-operation than one of structural and organisational links.

Neither the IMU nor the IJU have a broad support base in Uzbekistan or any other target country. Nor do they play the role of sophisticated and popular Islamist movements such as that of Hamas in Gaza. Yet their impact goes beyond their actual numerical and military strength. Through the use of modern media and communications technology, the IJU has managed to garner media attention and represent itself as larger and more omnipresent that it actually is.

The actions of both the IMU and the IJU fit into a so-called 'strategy of tension' whereby they create a pretext for the regime in Tashkent to crack down upon all forms of opposition, both secular and religious. The regime thus increases discontent among the population while promoting its own actions internationally as part of the war on terror. The oppressive regime in Tashkent is a factor which incites IJU and IMU members to take up arms in pursuit of their utopian goals.

Given its cell structure and involvement in classic guerilla warfare against government and international forces in Afghanistan, the IJU relies heavily on the wider Taliban movement for support. These types of links increase the IJU's ability and likelihood to engage its enemies outside Central Asia and attempts to attack Uzbek embassies and consulates and targets representing the regime's US, EU, Israeli or South Korean supporters may be expected to increase accordingly.

This is a direct challenge for the EU, not only in terms of security management but also in terms of its policies towards regimes such as that in Uzbekistan. Economic and geostrategic interests in Central Asia are as important now as they were in the Gulf and Africa during the seventies and eighties.

One must calculate the consequences, however. Although the possibility of becoming a target for militant fringe groups is real, an attack on European soil is unlikely to destabilise the EU. The main challenge at this point has less to do with the risk of terrorism than it does with ensuring in the long term that Uzbekistan’s population and whoever succeeds the current regime will hold favourable views of the EU and the West in general.