Central Asian terror crack-down to focus on three groups (Russia, China and the 'Stans Exclude USA)

A stepped-up anti-terrorist campaign in Central Asia by the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will be mainly aimed at three Muslim-dominated groups.

"When we talk about fighting the 'three forces' we mainly focus on the terrorist groups in Chechnya and East Turkestan and the Uzbekistan Islamic Movement," Zhou Li, a Chinese foreign ministry official said.

"We believe that these forces are an important part of international terrorist forces and that they should be severely cracked down upon."

On Monday in Beijing, the first foreign ministers' meeting of the SCO, which includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, agreed to set up a regional counter-terrorism agency and an emergency response mechanism.

The two mechanisms could be formally established in June when the fledgling SCO will hold a summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, and sign the organization's charter, he said.

The group's mandate to fight the "three forces" of terrorism, religious extremism and ethnic separatism has gained momentum with the global war on terrorism following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The grouping, which has held meetings since 1996, has long opposed Western human rights criticisms over Russia's crack-down on Chechen rebels and on China's treatment of ethnic Uighur minorities in its westernmost Xinjiang region.

"Different standards from what has been used to attack other terrorist forces should not be adopted (against the SCO)," Zhou said.

Zhou's statement appeared to be aimed at the United States, which has stated that the East Turkestan organization is not a terrorist grouping and that ethnic minorities in western China have legitimate economic and social issues that need to be addressed politically.

The Eastern Turkestan grouping is a loose-knit organization that generally supports the establishment of an independent East Turkestan nation in China's westernmost region.

"This is a rather big circle of terrorist groups that are involved in many activities including splitting the motherland and organized and individual terrorist and violent activties," Zhou said.

If you note the date of this organization it was founded in the mid 90s when the Clinton administration was using Islamic extremists as a pretext to extend "Western" (I do not say American because its citizens were kept in the dark for the most part) control eastward. The group's mandate to fight the "three forces" of terrorism, religious extremism and ethnic separatism is a direct refrence to Bill Clinton's support of the Bosnian Muslims, the Kosovo Albanians that he had NATO military force seperate from Yugoslavia and the indirect support given to the Chechen rebels by the "Third-Wayist" West against the Russians.

We are seeing right now in the formation and consolidation of this Central Asian groups a direct result of a disastrous foreign policy that Clinton initiated and many elected representatives of both parties sadly supported. It is not because the Northern Alliance is made up of criminals that they do not want a heavy Western presence in Afghanistan, it is because the West under Clinton was undermining Central Asia with the help of al-Qaeda. The Northern Alliance does not trust us for a reason.

I know what I am writting must be hard to stomach but read what the Conservative AIM organization's explanation and the follow up proof I provided @ BIN LADEN GATE.

http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jtsm/jtsm010719_1_n.shtml

19 July 2001

'Shanghai Five' expands to combat Islamic radicals

By JTSM contributor John Daly

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, President Jiang Zemin of China and the leaders of four former Soviet Central Asian states signed a declaration on 15 June creating the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO).

The original 'Shanghai Five' of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has expanded to include Uzbekistan as a new member. Uzbekistan's membership changes the orientation of the organisation; while it does not have a border with China, it does have a frontier with Afghanistan, and its Islamic dissident elements are the most active in the region.

The organisation is a diplomatic innovation for China, traditionally isolationist and wary of multilateral alliances. The original 'Shanghai Five' was formed in 1996 as a forum to resolve old Soviet-Chinese border disputes. Under Putin, China and Russia have grown much closer, bound by their mutual distrust of US hegemony and their perceived need to promote a multipolar world. The republics of Central Asia have been caught between the two regional giants while facing immense internal problems of economic stagnation and growing political unrest.

The organisation has the capacity for expansion. Pakistan has already expressed an interest in observer status, and Mongolia and India are considering future membership as well. According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Iran and Turkmenistan have also expressed an interest in the organisation's activities. According to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, even "the USA would like to join the Shanghai group". Should India, Pakistan and Mongolia enlarge the organisation, more than half the population of Eurasia, from the Baltic to the Pacific, will be arrayed in a loose political, economic and military alliance.

Western powers snubbed

The losers will be the United States and Turkey, whose tepid regional policies have convinced the Central Asian leadership that their immediate security concerns are better met by Moscow and Beijing. Zemin is due to visit Moscow in July to sign a pact of friendship and co-operation, further cementing the Sino-Russian partnership. The co-operation builds on the demilitarisation of the 4,600-mile long border begun under the 1997 treaty on reducing military forces in border regions. The heads of state of the member nations will meet once a year, with government officials meeting on a regular basis to co-ordinate activities. For Kyrgyzstan, the benefits were immediate; on 18 June the Kyrgyz defence minister, Esen Topoev, announced that China was giving Kyrgyzstan 8 million yuan (US$970,000) in military support.

United by Islamic dissident threat

What all members have in common is a growing unease with the Islamic fundamentalism seeping out of Afghanistan and inflaming their discontented populations. For the members, the common vector of fundamentalism remains Afghanistan. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev remarked at the gathering: "The cradle of terrorism, separatism and extremism is the instability in Afghanistan."

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