Context Needed: Tajik Suicide Bombers in Syria

Few issues are as steeped in hyperbole as that of Central Asians in Syria. Case in point: when the International Center for Counterterrorism – The Hague (ICCT) released a statistical analysis of the Islamic State’s use of suicide attacks over a year period from December 2015 to November 2016, Central Asian media honed in on a small part of the report centering on this sentence: “Over the twelve months in question, significantly more Tajiks died in VBIED [vehicle-borne improvised explosive device] and inghimas operations in Syria and Iraq than any other foreign national.”

Central Asian regional media ran headlines like these: “Tajik citizens lead in number of ISIL suicide bombers in Syria and Iraq” (Asia-Plus, a Tajik news outlet) and “Tajikistan’s Deadly Export” (RFE/RL).

While this factoid, which the report’s author, Charlie Winter, referred to as “curious,” is certainly newsworthy in the region, the context of the larger report is missing in much of the regional reporting.

As the ICCT report’s abstract notes, the overall analysis “demonstrates that IS’s present approach towards suicide bucks past trends”:

Instead of predominantly being carried out by foreigners against civilian targets, as was the case in Iraq in the 2000s, its suicide attacks are now primarily perpetrated by local operatives against military targets.

Of the 923 suicide operations that were individually reported by Islamic State’s official media and analyzed in the ICCT report, only 20 percent were carried out by foreign nationals, about 185 attacks. Of the 186 foreigners who died in suicide operations, 27 were Tajiks. The numbers for Tajiks outstripped the number of Saudi (17), Moroccan (17), Tunisian (14), and Russian (13) ISIS suicide bombers, for example.

For comparison: 182 were identified as Iraqi, 104 as Syrian, and 196 as other local ISIS supporters. Others were identified by their towns of origin; for some it was unclear whether they were Iraqi or Syrian. The author assigned these nationalities primarily based on the language which ISIS media used to refer to them, so the data is incomplete.

“Whatever the case,” the report remarks, “given the widespread belief that it is foreigners that make up the bulk of IS’s suicide cadres, these figures are striking indeed.” Most ISIS suicide bombers are local fighters, not foreign ones.

This context is entirely missing from Asia-Plus’ short piece on the report and even RFE/RL’s more complete article does not stress the report’s overall conclusion. It is understandable that locally focused media would hone in on the parts that are regionally relevant, but while the RFE/RL report seeks to explain why Tajiks feature so prominently among foreign born ISIS suicide bombers – something the ICCT report itself notes is beyond its scope – the Asia-Plus article does not, instead listing how many terrorist attacks plotted by Tajiks who joined ISIS the state has prevented.

And here lies the problem with focusing on a small detail, to the exclusion of the larger context in which that detail appears. The authorities in Tajikistan have a well-established track record of cracking down on Islam – political Islam in the form of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) most seriously, but also a vague definition of “non-traditional” iterations and Arab Muslim norms like hijabs and beards – as well as on journalists, activists, democrats, and other irritating groups. Dushanbe defends its pursuits as being in the name of state tradition and national security. The threat du jour is ISIS, so it is ISIS that Dushanbe cries, like the proverbial boy shouting “wolf!” Contextless headlines proclaiming the rise of Tajik suicide bombers only serve to reinforce the state’s argument, most importantly to local populations which, inspired by fear, may then view harsh government crackdowns as necessary evils.

According to Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda, in 2016 the state prevented 36 terrorist attacks and detained 50 people who had planned them. All those detained, the minister said, were Tajiks who had joined ISIS. The state’s claims are nearly impossible to verify as Dushanbe is not in the habit of allowing journalists access to detained “terrorists.” We are simply to take the state at its word.

It’s unclear at this juncture how Tajik authorities will capitalize on the ICCT report, or more specifically, the way the report was interpreted and re-reported in the region; but it’s a safe bet that this will feed the hype-machine in Dushanbe.