Probably shook by Russia this week of the terrorist attack in Saint-Petersburg became the 22-year-old Kyrgyz named Akbarjon Jalilov. It is from the passport of the terrorist on his behalf from his young age and origin should start to understand why it happened the brutal bloodshed.
To perform the identity of this terrorist is so important, because it reflects a very complex phenomenon that receives little coverage in the media of Islamic radicalism in Kyrgyzstan. The fact that Central Asia is turning into a cradle of jihadism, unfortunately, is not news. An endless number of official, public and academic sources confirm the dramatic spread of militant Islamists and suicide bombers in the region.
Kyrgyzstan has not remained aloof from this process. On the contrary, unfortunately, it has become one of the major scenes, where you can observe its development. Country, like all the former Soviet republics of Central Asia for 20 years to have experienced the ideological vacuum which is filled. When the era of communism ended, the country experienced a time of relative democratic stability, but she had to face and with whole generations deprived of cultural elements, which could emerge a new Republic.
This ideological vacuum in many areas in the country were filled after the emergence of radical Islamist sentiments, until that time in Kyrgyzstan do not know. The penetration of this new religious fundamentalism immediately fell on fertile ground in the socio-economic situation in the country. On the one hand, the socialist economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union was suppressed by the advent of the market system. Many Kyrgyz people had to emigrate to Russia and settle in the big cities of the Russian Federation in search of livelihood. On the other hand, this situation added more increasingly frequent conflicts between Kyrgyz and the Uzbek minority, who have repeatedly resulted in violent fights between representatives of the two peoples. Hometown terrorist from St. Petersburg, Osh, was this scene, where he played numerous acts of violence. The last one in 2010 was the culmination of a bloody period in the country, repeatedly risking to cross the line of ethnic war. They left a lot of refugees, after which the Kyrgyz social layer thinned.
In the context of this serious social crisis of Islamic radicalism for many has become a haven where you can vent their dissatisfaction. He was such as the Kirgiz fled to Russia and Kyrgyzstan, remaining in their homeland. According to the website Meduza, many immigrated to Moscow come to radical Islam through the Chechen acquaintances in the Russian capital. These immigrants on the side of the Moscow society into the centers, run by the Chechens, and out of them adherents to global jihadism, and often recruit them to travel to Syria or to return to their homeland.
At home they face a very peculiar situation, which is very easy to succeed. The cultural vacuum of the last decades of the Kyrgyz society is really experiencing a deep internal split. On the one hand, there is a dominant secular elite that emerged in the era of the Soviet Union and seeing any form of rapprochement between religion and politics, the danger to the state. These fears related to religion, led to a very repressive policy, which after years of its application was the closure of many parties with an Islamic bias, including refusal due to religious clothes.
On the other hand, however, society itself increasingly slipping into Islamization. Schools become smaller, a growing number of mosques and centers of religious education. In this respect, the data of the Department of religious Affairs is undeniable: in Kyrgyzstan over the past 25 years, i.e. since the collapse of communism, the number of mosques has increased from nearly 40 to more than 2400, add at least a hundred Koranic schools and centres of Islamic culture that the country was not. The absence of a national policy and, above all, ethnic clashes between the Uzbek minority and the Kyrgyz majority has determined that in many areas Islam had replaced the people the means of salvation. Giving the choice between civil war and a common affiliation with Islam, in its more radical form, preachers have given in essence people common ground to build a new society, one founded on faith. When socialism ended, and national policy no, Islam seeks to become a binding element of Kyrgyz society.
Of course, this evolution is of serious concern to the Kremlin. The attack in St. Petersburg, indeed, is yet another alarm signal from the Central Asia, it makes this region key in the agenda of Russian politics. There, in a country not so far from the Afghan fiasco, are the allies, contain energy resources and the open threat of jihadism road linking Chechnya, the middle East and Central Asia in an Alliance of terror, whose main purpose is the area of influence of Moscow.
