Author Topic: Afghan War Threatens To Spill Over Into Central Asia  (Read 774 times)

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Offline thundley4

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Afghan War Threatens To Spill Over Into Central Asia
« on: December 30, 2009, 11:53:35 PM »
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During the months-long debate over U.S. policy options for Afghanistan, critics of the war effort questioned whether the global fight against al-Qaida really depends on what happens in Kabul and Kandahar. Recent developments in the region, however, have raised the opposite question: Can the war in Afghanistan be contained in that country?

"You have global problems in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. All is connected, and especially with Central Asia," says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a European Union envoy on terrorism. Bruguiere's concern, shared by U.S. intelligence officials and other analysts, is that the conflict in Afghanistan could spread to its Central Asian neighbors — Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Until now, Central Asia hasn't been associated much with the Afghanistan war. But Bruguiere highlights what he calls an "arc of conflict" encompassing Pakistan, Afghanistan, the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and Russia.

"And beyond Russia, we have Europe," says Bruguiere, a former investigative magistrate in France and the author of a new memoir, What I Could Not Say.

A New Domino Theory

The concern about a widening Afghan war stems from growing international collaboration between radical insurgent groups that had previously focused on their home countries. One example: the Afghan Taliban's alliance with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU.
NPR

And in Europe , there are large populations of restless terrorists Muslims.  This almost sounds like another Crusade is inevitable .