Five gunmen attacked Armenia's Parliament in October, killing eight members,
including the Prime Minister and National Assembly Speaker. Later in the year
a grenade was thrown at the Russian Embassy, damaging several cars but causing
no injuries.
A major Central Asian regional crisis erupted in Kyrgyzstan when members of
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) twice crossed the border from Tajikistan
and took hostages. Among the several dozen hostages taken in the second incident
were four Japanese geologists, who eventually were released after several nations
intervened; ransom was rumored to have been paid.
Russian cities, including Moscow, were subjected to several bomb attacks, which
killed and injured hundreds of persons. Police accused the attackers of belonging
to Chechen and Dagestan insurgent groups with ties to Usama Bin Ladin and foreign
mujahidin but presented no evidence linking Chechen separatists to the
bombings. The attacks prompted Russia to send military forces into Chechnya
to eliminate "foreign terrorists." Neighboring Caucasus states within
the Russian Federation as well as surrounding countries feared Russia's military
campaign in Chechnya would increase radicalization of Islamic internal populations
and encourage violence and the spread of instability throughout the region.
The Russian campaign into Chechnya also raised fears in Azerbaijan and Georgia,
as well as Russia, that the Chechen insurgents increasingly would use those
countries for financial and logistic support.
Uzbekistan experienced several major attacks by IMU insurgents seeking to overthrow
the government. In February five coordinated car bombs exploded, killing 16
persons, in what the government labeled an attempt on the President's life.
In September the IMU declared a jihad against the Uzbekistani Government.
In November the IMU was blamed for a violent encounter outside the capital city
of Tashkent that killed 10 Uzbekistani Government officials and 15 insurgents.
Armenia
On 27 October five Armenian gunmen opened fire on a Parliament session,
killing eight government leaders, including Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisyan
and National Assembly Speaker Karen Demirchyan. The gunmen claimed they were
protesting the responsibility of government officials for dire social and economic
conditions in Armenia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The gunmen
later surrendered to authorities and at yearend were being detained with 10
other Armenians accused of complicity. An investigation of the incident was
ongoing.
Russian facilities in Armenia also came under attack. On 25 November a grenade
was thrown into the Russian Embassy compound in Yerevan, causing no injuries
but damaging several cars.
Azerbaijan
Although Azerbaijan did not face a serious threat from international terrorism,
it served as a logistic hub for international mujahidin with ties to
terrorist groups, some of whom supported the Chechen insurgency in Russia. Azerbaijan
increased its border controls with Russia when the Chechen conflict reignited
during the year to prevent foreign mujahidin from operating within its
borders.
Georgia
On 13 October terrorists kidnapped seven UN observers near Abkhazia and
demanded a significant ransom for their release. Georgian officials secured
the victims' freedom within two days, however, without acceding to the kidnappers'
demands.
Georgia also faced spillover violence from the Chechen conflict and, like Azerbaijan,
contended with international mujahidin seeking to use Georgia as a conduit
for financial and logistic assistance to the Chechen fighters. Russia pressured
the Georgian Government to introduce stronger border controls to stop the flow
of men and arms. Russian officials also alleged that armed Chechen fighters
entered Georgia with refugees to hide until a possible Chechen counterattack
against Russia in the spring of 2000.
Violence again colored Georgian domestic politics, especially attacks against
senior leaders. Although no attacks were conducted against the President this
year, Georgian security officials disrupted an alleged coup plot in May, and
other prominent officials were the victims or targets of political and criminal
violence.
Kyrgyzstan
International terrorism shocked Kyrgyzstan for the first time in August
when armed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) militants twice crossed into
Kyrgyzstan and instigated a two-and-one-half-month hostage crisis. From 6 to
13 August, IMU militants from Tajikistan held four Kyrgyzstanis hostage in southern
Kyrgyzstan before they released them without incident and retreated to Tajikistan.
The militants returned in a larger force on 22 August and seized 13 hostages,
including four Japanese geologists, their interpreter, a Kyrgyzstani Interior
Ministry general, and several Kyrgyzstani soldiers. IMU militants continued
to arrive in subsequent weeks, numbering as many as 1,000 at the incursion's
peak.
The IMU's implicit goal was to infiltrate Uzbekistan and destabilize the government.
The militants first demanded safe passage to Uzbekistan; additional demands
called for money and a prisoner exchange. Uzbekistan refused to allow them to
enter, leaving Kyrgyzstan's ill-prepared security forces to combat the terrorists
with Uzbekistani military assistance, Russian logistic support, and negotiation
assistance from other governments. The militants' guerrilla tactics enabled
them to maintain their position in difficult mountainous terrain, frustrating
the Kyrgyzstani military's attempts to dislodge them. Observers speculated that
only the approach of winter forced the militants to retreat into Tajikistan,
where negotiators were able to facilitate an agreement between the IMU and Kyrgyzstani
representatives.
On 25 October the militants finally released all hostages except a Kyrgystani
soldier they had executed. Kyrgyzstan released an IMU prisoner, but Kyrgyzstani
and Japanese officials denied Japanese press reports that they paid a monetary
ransom for the hostages' release. Although an agreement stipulated that all
IMU militants would leave Tajikistani territory after the hostage crisis, some
IMU militants may have remained in the region. Central Asian officials and most
external observers feared that a similar IMU incursion into Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan
could occur in the spring, either from bases in Tajikistan or from terrorist
camps in Afghanistan.
Russia
In the fall a series of bombings in Russian cities claimed hundreds of victims
and raised concern about terrorism in the Russian Federation. On 4 September
a truck bomb exploded in front of an apartment complex at a Russian military
base in Buynaksk, Dagestan, killing 62 persons and wounding 174. Authorities
discovered a second bomb on the base the same day and disarmed it before it
caused further casualties. On 8 and 13 September powerful explosions demolished
two Moscow apartment buildings, killing more than 200 persons and wounding 200
others. The two Moscow incidents were similar, with explosive materials placed
in rented facilities on the ground floor of each building and detonated by timing
devices in the early morning. The string of bomb attacks continued when a car
bomb exploded in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk on 16 September, killing
17 persons and wounding more than 500 others.
A caller to Russian authorities claimed responsibility for the Moscow bombings
on behalf of the previously unknown "Dagestan Liberation Army," but
no claims were made for the incidents in Buynaksk and Volgodonsk. Russian police
suspected insurgent groups from Chechnya and Dagestan conducted the bombings
at the behest of Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev and the mujahidin
leader known as Ibn al-Khattab, although Russian authorities did not release
evidence to confirm their suspicions. Russian authorities arrested eight individuals
and issued warrants for nine others believed to be hiding in Chechnya but presented
no evidence linking Chechen separatists to the bombings.
In response to the apartment building bombings and to an armed incursion by
Basayev and Khattab into Dagestan from Chechnya, Russian troops entered Chechnya
in October in a campaign to eliminate "foreign terrorists" from the
North Caucasus. The forces fighting the Russian army were mostly ethnic Chechens
and supporters from other regions of Russia. They received some support from
foreign mujahidin with extensive links to Middle Eastern, South Asian,
and Central Asian Islamist extremists, as well as to Usama Bin Ladin. At yearend,
Chechen militant activity had been localized in the North Caucasus region, but
Russia and Chechnya's neighboring states feared increased radicalization of
Islamist populations would encourage violence and spread instability elsewhere
in Russia and beyond.
There were few violent political acts against the United States in Russia during
the year. Anti-NATO sentiment during the Kosovo campaign sparked an attack on
the US Embassy in Moscow in late March when a protester unsuccessfully attempted
to launch a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at the facility. The perpetrator
sprayed the front of the building with machinegun fire after he failed to launch
the RPG. At yearend no progress had been made in identifying or apprehending
the assailant.
Tajikistan
Security for the international community in Tajikistan did not improve in
1999. The U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe suspended operations in September 1998 because
of the Tajikistani Government's limited ability to protect the safety of US
and foreign personnel there. U.S. personnel were moved to Almaty, although they
travel regularly to Dushanbe.
The IMU's use of Tajikistan as a staging ground for its incursion into Kyrgyzstan
was the most significant international terrorist activity in Tajikistan in 1999.
The IMU militants entered Kyrgyzstan from bases in Tajikistan and returned to
the area with their Japanese and Central Asian hostages when they fled Kyrgyzstan
in late September and October. As part of the agreement that resolved the incident,
the Uzbekistani militants left Tajikistan, although some IMU fighters may have
remained in some regions of the country.
Uzbekistan
On 16 February five coordinated car bombs targeted at Uzbekistani Government
facilities exploded within a two-hour period in downtown Tashkent, killing 16
persons and wounding more than 100 others. Such an attack was unprecedented
in a former Soviet republic. Uzbekistani officials feared the attacks were aimed
at assassinating President Islom Karimov and suspected the IMU, some of whose
members had opposed the Karimov regime for many years. By summer the government
had arrested or questioned hundreds of suspects about their possible involvement
in the bombings. Ultimately the government condemned 11 suspects to death and
sentenced more than 120 others to prison terms.
The IMU threat to Uzbekistan continued, however, with the group's incursion
into Kyrgyzstan in August. Although the IMU militants did not attack Uzbekistani
soil or personnel at the time, they tried to achieve a foothold in Uzbekistan
for future IMU action. The militants in Kyrgyzstan also publicly declared jihad
against the Uzbekistani Government on 3 September.
In November a group of Uzbekistani forest rangers encountered a group of IMU
members in a mountainous region approximately 80 kilometers east of Tashkent.
Initially reported to be bandits, the IMU militants killed four foresters and
three Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) police. An extensive MVD search-and-destroy
operation resulted in the death of 15 suspected insurgents and three additional
MVD special forces officers. During a press conference, the Minister of the
Interior identified some of the insurgents as IMU members who had taken hostages
in Kyrgyzstan in August.
[end of text]
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