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French authorities said they had thwarted an Islamist attack on the Olympics by arresting an 18-year-old Chechen man suspected of planning a May terror attack on behalf of the Islamic State at the Saint-Etienne soccer stadium in France, where Manchester United plays. The United States and Ukraine will attend the tournament.
France is a frequent target of Islamist attacks given its colonial history and rising anti-Muslim sentiment, as well as its historical involvement in wars in the Middle East and Africa.
Last month, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said “Islamist terrorism is our main concern” during the Olympics, though authorities said they had not seen any immediate threats against the Games.
Tajikistan, which was devastated by civil war in the 1990s, is the poorest of the former Soviet republics.
It depends on remittances from migrants, who mainly live in Russia and account for almost half of the economy’s income.
Many security experts say poor and isolated men among the Tajik diaspora have proven to be attractive targets for IS-K recruitment.
However, a source told Reuters that French intelligence agencies have few assets in Central Asia, making it difficult to infiltrate their communities.
According to the French Tajik Association, there are about 30 Tajik families in the country.
The intelligence source said IS-K posed a relatively new threat because new recruits living abroad could radicalize Central Asian nationals in France to launch attacks on French soil.
As evidence, the source mentioned the case of a Tajik man who was arrested in 2022 for organizing attacks in Strasbourg. The source said that this person acted on the instructions of members of the IS-K group abroad.
Another source said France has identified dozens of IS-K members in many countries around Afghanistan who have a large online presence and are trying to convince young people in European countries who are interested in joining the group to carry out attacks.
The men then connected the recruits with each other and provided them with false documents and weapons, a process that could take weeks.
Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the topic.
Complex rituals
In addition to Varkey, Reuters spoke to two other Tajiks and an Uzbek living in France who had been contacted by police and asked about the situation in their communities.
Nadejda Atayeva, an Uzbek human rights activist in the northwestern city of Le Mans, said she gave police officials Varkey’s contact number after meeting them in Paris.
“I was asked for the contact details of a Tajik person whom I trusted. I was told that they wanted to talk to Tajiks and find out what they thought about the developments in Moscow,” she said.
Sebastien Peyrouse, a French academic who has briefed French and American institutions on the nature of militants in Central Asia, said Paris had been slow to avert possible Tajik threats.
“France is more concerned about radicalized people in the Middle East, in Algeria, in North Africa, than it is about people in Central Asia,” he said.
“I think France was surprised by what happened in Moscow, and maybe a little bit late.”
Edward Lemon, an expert on Tajikistan who frequently contacts Western spy agencies, said that despite having detailed information about militant networks in Central Asia, Russian intelligence failed to prevent the attack on Krokus Hall.
French Defense Minister Sebastien Le Cornu said in April that the exchange of intelligence between Russia and France on the Islamic State and other extremist groups has decreased significantly since Russia launched the war in Ukraine in February 2022.
Two U.S. State Department officials who are coordinating security for the U.S. Olympic team told Reuters they were confident in France’s preparations.
They gave no details but said France’s attempts to establish close ties with the Tajik population reflected a common counter-terrorism approach to learn more about threat actors within the Tajik community.
One of the people said “everyone will get more information” about the threats in Central Asia.
Militants fleeing Syria
Lemon and two other Central Asia experts said the biggest threat from Tajik militants in Europe comes from dozens of militants who have fought in Syria and infiltrated the continent from Ukraine.
Last year, German authorities arrested six Central Asians suspected of trying to form a terrorist group.
Prosecutors said the men, who hold citizenship of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, entered Germany from Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion began in 2022.
They are now in jail awaiting trial.
Lemon believes that tens of thousands of Tajiks live in Europe, mainly in Poland and Germany.
Most of them are political refugees who moved here a decade ago after Tajik President Emomali Rahmon declared two opposition movements – 24 Group and Islamic Resistance – terrorist and extremist parties.
Russia’s ally Rahmon has ruled Tajikistan for 30 years.
Varkey, an outspoken critic of Rahmon, has said he sought asylum in France in 2016 because he was a great fan of French culture and literature.
He said he had never spoken to French security services until they contacted him in March.
Muhammadiqboli Sadriddin, another Tajik dissident living in France, said he had also been invited by the police.
“They asked me what I knew,” Sadridin said.
He said he wanted to help, but he didn’t know any Tajiks with radical ideas.
Three experts told Reuters that French attempts to reach out to the Tajik community could backfire.
A former U.S. spy who spoke on condition of anonymity said that overall, French intelligence services were doing a good job.
However, he believes that the increasing information pressure on Tajiks could shame them and scare them away from identifying any dangerous individuals.
Jean-François Ratel, an expert on Islamist militancy at the University of Ottawa, agreed.
“Building this relationship with the community should have happened years ago. If the mentality is to fight terrorism, then the approach will fail,” he said. /REL
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