A Rare Case of Uzbek-Kyrgyz Cooperation

I see the police in Turkey have caught the man they believe carried out the attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve. He appears to have spent the interim period at a bare-knuckle boxing gym:

Abdulkadir Masharipov is believed to have mounted the assault on the Reina club which left 39 people dead.

The Uzbek national is said to have been caught in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district.

Uzbek, you say? So not an Uighur, then? Didn’t think so.

There had been fears that the gunman had managed to escape Turkey, perhaps to territory held by so-called Islamic State, which said it was behind the attack.

I must say, this surprises me a lot. One of the features of al-Qa’eda and ISIS-driven gun attacks and bombings is that the perpetrators treat it as a suicide mission and don’t make much of an attempt to escape. The Charlie Hebdo gunmen fled initially but fought to the death when cornered in a warehouse; the Bataclan attackers died at the scene; the Nice lorry driver was shot to death in the cab. The policeman who murdered the Russian ambassador in Ankara didn’t seem much interested in getting away either. The inability to capture these people alive after an attack is what makes ISIS-inspired terrorists so dangerous because, as the Western films taught us, dead men can’t talk.

The guy who drove the lorry into the Christmas market in Berlin on 19th December broke the trend by fleeing Germany to Italy via France, and only got shot and killed when policemen in Milan asked him his identity during a random stop in Milan. Where he was headed is anyone’s guess. And now you have this Uzbek fleeing the scene of the crime and attempting to lie low instead of remaining in the club and making the victim count as high as possible until his ammunition runs out or the police kill him. You’d have thought that if he was intending to escape he’d have got the hell out of Istanbul and over the border into Syria somehow, but he seems to have stuck around. This might be because the Turkish security forces are so efficient they sealed off the entire city and closed the borders so tight nobody could slip through, but I’m a little skeptical of that.

My theory is this: ISIS are finding it more difficult to recruit suicidal fanatics and are having to use slightly less fanatical people who are happy to carry out an atrocity but not so keen on committing suicide in the process. The Arab-speaking world has at this point a lengthening history of supplying suicide attackers, but Uzbeks aren’t generally known for it. Ethnic Uzbeks fought in Afghanistan, switching loyalty between various sides under the leadership of Abdul Rashid Dostum, but in a manner more akin to tribal self-interest than the religious fanaticism shown by the mujaheddin and later the Taliban.

There are certainly religious fanatics in Uzbekistan however, but their numbers and capabilities are often exaggerated either by westerners through ignorance or locals for political convenience. Following 9/11 the president of Uzbekistan, the late Islam Karimov, established his pro-Western credentials with the United States by allowing them to use the Karshi-Khanabad airbase in the south of the country to attack targets in Afghanistan. He also promised to root out extremist elements in Uzbekistan which pleased the US, only he used this as cover to crack down on his domestic political opponents who had nothing to do with Islamic terrorism, earning his government a reputation as a serial abuser of human. Eventually the complaints got so bad the relations between the two countries soured.

My guess would be that ISIS has successfully recruited a few thousand Uzbeks to their cause but their levels of fanaticism and commitment are questionable, at least in comparison to their Arabic comrades.

Police reportedly found the suspect along with his four year-old son at the home of a Kyrgyz friend in the city. Turkish media say that his friend was also detained, along with three women.

This surprises me as well. Despite being close neighbours and sharing an insanely complicated border which completely (and deliberately, thanks to Stalin) dissects ethnic groupings, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz are widely different peoples. The main difference is that Uzbeks are Turkic people who are settled, meaning they live in towns and villages. The Kyrgyz, like the Kazakhs, are traditionally nomadic and more akin to Mongolians. From my own experience and readings, Uzbeks tend to be more aggressive and take their religion a little more seriously. You rarely hear of Kazakhs or Kyrgyz throwing their lot in with al-Qa’eda or ISIS, although no doubt some do. My guess would be they’d number in the low thousands at most, if that.

Despite their common Soviet history, the Uzbeks are hardly natural allies with the Kyrgyz and Kazakhs. In September 2015 I attended an Uzbek wedding near Shymkent in Kazakhstan, close to the border with Uzbekistan. The town of Shymkent is 14% Uzbek, and the village where the wedding took place was pretty much 100% Uzbek. I noticed that there were a few ethnic Russians at the wedding but no Kazakhs; and I happened to be in the venue of a Kazakh wedding the day before and didn’t see any Uzbeks (after a while you can tell them apart by looking at them; of course the locals can do this from a mile away). I asked my friend, who was the one getting married, if there is much mixing between Uzbeks and Kazakhs and he said there wasn’t. You occasionally see some mixing with the Russians and sometimes the Korean minorities, but not between Uzbeks and Kazakhs. I’ve not been to the Ferghana Valley region where Uzbekistan borders  Kyrgyzstan, but I would guess much the same thing applies there.

Ethnic tensions between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz came to a head in 2010 when the two groups clashed in the Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad, leading to around a thousand people being killed and over a hundred thousand displaced during the fighting and the aftermath. In short, the Istanbul gunman hiding out at the home of his mate appears to be a rare case of Uzbek-Kyrgyz cooperation rather something to be expected.

One would hope that now the Turkish authorities have captured him alive we’ll find out some answers as to who he was working for and his motivations. I doubt they’ll get much useful information out of him regarding ISIS as a whole, if it was indeed they who put him up to it. They’d have known he wasn’t keen on dying at the scene and as such wouldn’t have given him any information that wasn’t pertinent to the job in hand, and as an Uzbek of questionable commitment he would unlikely be included in high-level meetings. I don’t know what methods the Turks use to extract information from foreigners who have murdered 39 people in Istanbul nightclubs, but I suspect he’ll spill whatever he has and then some. Whoever is in charge of the translating might want to spend the day brushing up on Uzbek phrases such as “Please take these crocodile clips off my bollocks!”

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Atyrau Again

I’m back in Atyrau, my noisy old propellor plane having stayed up in the air just long enough to get us across the Caspian safely.  I’m staying in the same crap hotel which I was in a few days ago, but they’ve given me a slightly better room.  They’ve hoovered the carpet, and the TV now works.  Included in the selection of channels is one showing free-of-charge hardcore German porn 24 hours per day.

Now that’s what I call an improvement in service.

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From Sakhalin to Atryau

I’m now in Baku, sitting on the tenth floor of a rather nice hotel overlooking the Caspian Sea.  I’ll write about my journey from Sakhalin to Atyrau in this post, and about Baku in the next.

My flight from Sakhalin to Moscow was not half as bad as I expected, for the sole reason that the seat spacing was inexplicably good.  The plane was clearly second hand, and down the sides of the seats were the remains of the meal which was served on the plane’s maiden flight, but there was ample legroom, even for a giraffe like me.  In fact, it probably had as much leg room as any other plane I’ve been on, and even though my contact at the airport arranged for me to have a spare seat beside me, I let a Russian chap sit there once he asked me nicely having found a screaming infant beside his own seat further back along the cabin.  It appears as though Transaero is making steps to becoming a fairly decent airline, and the standard of aircraft has improved massively since I first flew with them 18 months ago.  They had a nice glossy in-flight magazine with decent articles and boasting details of their fleet made up almost exclusively of Boeings, and their list of destinations was impressive for a Russian airline.  Okay, they put Atyrau a few hundred kilometres too far down the Caspian Sea and Sharjah was now in Iran, but the effort was there.  As usual, the entertainment system (consisting of a TV monitor every twenty feet along the ceiling) didn’t work, but they did come up with the novel idea of renting portable DVD players and a selection of films for $20 a go.  Once again, I have to say that the food was more than edible, and the service attitude of the staff did not conform to the stereotype of Russian airlines.  Which means that Transaero are clearly much better than Lufthansa, whose staff are the rudest, most unprofessional, useless bunch of clowns ever to have worked in a service industry.

Domodedovo airport has undergone some pretty good improvements since I first visited, and now there are ample good cafes, bars, and shops to wander around.  Unfortunately, none of the business lounges can be accessed through the Priority Pass system, and it is said that to get in by paying will set you back a few hundred dollars.  Somehow I don’t think I’d get that past the nose of my boss on an expense form.  Anyway, I checked into my flight some 6 hours before takeoff and wandered aimlessly around and around for an hour before settling into a chair in a pretty nice cafe on the top floor, called Vienna.  The cafe had silhouettes of Mozart all over it and score sheets of his music, which was a bit odd considering Mozart was from Salzburg and not Vienna, but it was a decent enough joint all the same and a pasta dish with a couple of beers was only 700 Roubles.  This sum of money in Sheremetovo airport would get you a sandwich from last week and small cup of tea.  Or 14 beers.  I was seriously tired by about eleven o’clock, as it was 6am Sakhalin time. 

Clearing immigration was the usual chaos, with two only counters being open (from an available eight), then three, then back to two, then for all practical purposes one as the other had hit a logjam of some sort.  One of the logjams was me.  Firstly, the chap behind the counter had no idea where Atyrau was and had to go off somewhere to find out.  Then he encountered a more serious problem.  I was officially leaving the Russian Federation on 31st March, but my flight was on 1st April, at forty minutes past midnight.  This confused him completely, and he had to ask his mate, who was as dimwitted as he was and looked it to boot.  Then he made a phone call, got the number wrong twice, gave up, and wandered off somewhere.  Eventually he came back, stamped my passport, and let me through.  Something occurred to me during the time I was standing like a lampost at the counter.  No matter how complicated or serious the problem appears to be at immigration counters, no matter how many people in uniforms draped in gold braiding and medals with massive hats get involved, the person always ends up with his passport stamped and waved through.  Always.  I’ve never yet seen a problem at an immigration counter which resulted in the person concerned being told to sod off back where he came from.  Maybe the Russians should stop pretending they are checking anything and just install machines which stamp your passport on your way through.

I managed to sleep for a couple of 15 minute sessions by leaning awkwardly onto the next seat and placing my swede on my rucksack, but it wasn’t much use.  By the time I boarded the plane to Atyrau, I looked like a zombie.  Fortunately I managed to sleep on this plane, but it was one of those slumbers which involves your head coming bolt upright every few minutes accompanied by a loud slurping as you retrieve the drool which is making its way down your jumper.  Half an hour outside Atyrau they dished out immigration cards for all foreigners to fill in, which were all rather complicated.  Some parts were in Russian, Kazakh, and English, some parts in Russian and Kazakh, and other parts only in Kazakh.  I was struggling like hell, until I asked the Kazakh lady beside me for help, and she pointed out that even she didn’t understand some bits and suggested I should leave them blank.  For all the notice the immigration officer paid to it upon arrival, I might as well have left the whole lot blank.  I still have no idea why they make everyone fill these things out.  I can’t believe they get used for anything, and there is no information on them which is not already contained in your passport and visa, both of which they scan into a machine.  Except possibly an address at which you are staying, which I make up anyway by putting “Marriott Hotel” no matter where I am going to.

Immigration was as chaotic as it is in Russia, with the bloke manning my counter having seemingly never seen a passport before.  How he got all those medals and rank insignia is anyone’s guess.  Once I got through to the Republic of Kazakhstan, I discovered my bag had not made it through.  I was not altogether surprised, as I’d checked in very early and as I watched my bag disappear (upside down) along the conveyor belt, I wondered if some baggage handler wasn’t going to put it to one side, finish his shift, and clear off home without a proper handover.  I went into the office in Atyrau airport over which some wag had put a sign saying “Passenger Services” which was occupied by a load of Kazakh women.  I told one of them my bag hadn’t arrived, and I think she’d have shown more interest if I gave her a transcript of one of my dreams.  By looking and sounding extremely grumpy, I got her to put her full effort into resolving the problem – which she did by handing me a completely blank piece of A4 paper and telling me to write down my problem.  I started to take the piss.  I asked what I was supposed to write.  She said write down that my bag has gone missing.  I asked her is that all I should write.  She said I should write down the bag’s colour.  I asked if I should write only that my black bag has gone missing.  Finally one of the other women stepped in who was a lot more helpful, and I got less grumpy.  In fact, the other women were all rather nice, and I suspect they all thought the first woman was being uneccesarily bitchy to this rather dashing British chap who had come into their office speaking Russian.  Or something.  Anyway, they told me to sit down, offered me a cup of tea, and started handing out sweets and chocolates.  I thought this was all rather touching, not that it got me any closer to reunification with my bag.  Eventually some bloke turned up who knew what to do, and he dug about in some drawer and came up with a proper form for those with lost luggage.  The woman who handed me the blank piece of paper just stood there looking dense.  I then found myself having to translate from English into Russian for a Frenchman who had arrived in Atyrau to find the wheel on his suitcase had been ripped off.  If he ever gets any compensation for that, I’ll swim the Caspian.

I got dropped off by the company driver at what I was told was one of the best hotels in Atyrau, which is a bit like discussing the best strip bar in Riyadh.  As soon as I checked in, at 5:00am local time, I asked the receptionist if she could send me up a toothbrush seeing as my bag had got lost.  She said they didn’t have any, and nor did they have a razor, but I was free to buy these items from the shop in the foyer of the hotel, which was miraculously open.  But first I needed some money, and there was an ATM in the hotel,  but I had no idea what the exchange rate was between the Kazakh Tenge and any currency I might have heard of.  The small currency exchange beside the shop was closed and its digital display in darkness, so I asked the receptionist what the rough exchange rate was between the Tenge and the US dollar.  She helpfully told me the currency exchange was closed and I should check in the morning.  I grew exasperated and asked her if I should take out 10, 100, 1000, or a million Tenge in order to buy a toothbrush.  She said she didn’t know.  I asked her the same question again, and she must have thought I was going to wring her neck (I was) unless she answered, because she quickly gave me a sensible answer.

Having spent 2,760 Tenge ($23) on a disposable razor, deodorant, two pairs of grandad socks, and some shaving foam, I took the lift up to my room, which might have had the carpet hoovered once before, featured a sink to which the taps were barely attached, and a toilet seat which had split in half.  The place was a dump, but the bed was horizontal and there was no jet-engine roaring beside me, so I really didn’t care.

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Kazakh Arabia?

Once again the authors at Harry’s Place wander into matters Central Asian and quickly get lost, this time in the steppes of Kazakhstan:

[F]or those of us whose knowledge of Kazakhstan is gleaned entirely from Borat’s new film: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, take a few minutes out to read Andrew Apostolou’s explanation of why Bush was wrong to invite Nazarbayev to the White House.

Which we do, and come across such wisdom as:

[A] predominately Muslim Kazakhstan teeters on the brink of turning into another Saudi Arabia: corrupt at the top, with ample cause for discontent at the bottom.

They should stick to Borat.

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Outsiders further shut out of FSU

The signs are not looking good for foreign companies wishing to play a role in the oil and gas industry of the former Soviet Union.

Firstly, the government of Kazakhstan has stepped in with a hastily written law in order to block China National Petroleum Corporation’s (CNPC) $4.18 billion takeover of Canada’s PetroKazakhstan:

[T]he upper chamber, the Senate, passed a complex Bill that aims to give Kazakhstan the right to intervene in the sale of foreign-held stakes in oil players. It also seeks to limit property rights over “strategic resources” like oil and gas.

The Bill, which only needs President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s signature to come into law, could derail CNPC’s bid for PetroKazakhstan, a Canadian-listed producer with almost its entire operations in the Central Asian republic.

In recent years, Kazakhstan has sought to bring its oil and gas resources under greater state control and set tougher terms for foreign oil companies.

And in Russia:

Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry expects a law limiting foreign participation in the country’s largest oil and gas to come into force in 2007, a year later than initially planned.

The official added that the government will draft amendments to existing laws so it can limit foreign participation in next year’s planned sales of Arctic oilfields.

Effective renationalisation of the oil and gas industry in the FSU is all the rage at the moment, mainly because the governments of such countries have seen the hike in oil price and are feeling disgruntled that the outside companies are making an awful lot of money, which should be going to the government coffers instead. So they simply push the outsiders off the job and take back what they deem to be rightfully theirs. This will work fine whilst the oil price is sky high and there are plenty of proven reserves to exploit. It will not work so well come the day that the oil price readjusts to a more sensible figure or more exploration is needed.

It is all very well for governments to grab back these resources when the prices are high, but are they going to be in a position to run the industry efficiently and safely when the price drops? No. The governments are intending to sit back and cream off the cash as much as they can, and I doubt if any of them have a clue what to do if and when they actually have to put money back in to facilities which are no longer profitable. Western private companies are far better at running facilities in hard times than national companies, simply because their management, maintenance, and operating systems are vastly more efficient. They are also far better at running facilties safely, safety being something which gets abandoned when a state-owned facility is under pressure to perform economically.

There is also the issue, touched on in a previous post here, of exploration, an area of the oil and gas industry which requires a lot of up front investment with a lengthy payback period. Investment in exploration requires the company in question to have a lot of faith in the resource owner’s long term policies, and it is difficult to see how any future exploration is to be encouraged by the current actions of the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia.

However, Kazakh Deputy Energy & Mineral Resources Minister Bakhtykozha Izmukhambetov thinks differently, telling senators before the vote that:

“These new restrictions do not mean a worsening of the republic’s investment climate.”

No? Well, let’s see what the investors think.

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