Registan’s Tajikistan News & Analysis Archive

Following independence, Tajikistan fell into a civil war that lasted until 1997, when an agreement was signed in which President Emomali Rahmon promised a share of government positions to the United Tajik Opposition. The war devastated Tajikistan, killing between 50,000 and 100,000 Tajiks and displacing over one million people. The war has had a deep and lasting legacy on Tajikistan. On the one hand, it is the only country with a legally operating Islamic political party. On the other, President Rahmon has steadily consolidated power, pushing his civil war opponents to the political sidelines and putting Islam under much tighter government control.

Several of our contributors have research experience in Tajikistan and others have worked on a variety of research and analysis projects on Tajikistan. Registan puts that experience to work to offer research, analysis, and training services tailored to your individual needs. For more information on how we can help you and your organization better understand Tajikistan and Central Asia, visit our services page.

Freedom and Fear in Central Asia: How the Security Assistance Debate is Asking the Wrong Questions

by Noah Tucker
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The terrorist threat against Central Asia is real and not in dispute. Groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and its offshoot the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) have demonstrated the capability to conduct small-scale operations inside Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and as the US

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Central Asia Security Workshop, March 25-26 at George Washington University

by Noah Tucker
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If you’re in the DC area, please join me and a bunch of other Registan contributors at this fantastic workshop put together by Marlene Laruelle and the Central Asia Program at GW. From the website: “NATO members are exiting from

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So, Uzbekistan, How Deep Does the Rabbit Hole Go?

by Myles G. Smith

Cynicism will only take you so far. Except in Central Asia, where it can take you basically anywhere. EurasiaNet has published the highly publishable speculation of local media outlets that the government and Central Bank of Uzbekistan is using a series of ‘improvements’ and ‘simplifications’ (their words) to the foreign exchange market, customs regulations, and the bank [...]

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Advocating for a Better Central Asia

by Nathan Hamm
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When I saw that OSI had published a policy brief arguing that “the degree to which the United States holds countries in Eurasia publicly accountable for respecting human rights and democracy depends on each country’s relative strategic importance to the United States, not the human rights conditions in each country,” I anticipated writing a long [...]

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Post-2014 Terrorist Threat in Central Asia: Keeping it Real

by Guest
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Contributed by Nathan Barrick Is there a terrorist threat to Central Asia after the ISAF drawdown in Afghanistan in 2014? In recent publications, the warnings range from an imminent FATA-like region of militant-dominated, ungoverned space in the Ferghana Valley to the “these are not the terrorists you’re looking for” Jedi mind trick “2014 Central Asia [...]

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The Risk of an Interventionist Uzbekistan

by Nathan Hamm

One concern I have heard in various forms regarding post-Karimov succession in Uzbekistan is that an unresolved plan for transition to a new leader could cause the country to erupt in chaos. I count that as a fairly low risk. As I argued during my talk in Seattle last weekend and in recent interviews with [...]

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Central Asia in 2013: What Not to Look For

by Myles G. Smith

Change seems to come slowly to Central Asia. January is the time of year that people like us brashly predict the developments that will reshape country X and fundamentally alter the course of world events. If we worked at Stratfor, we’d even be paid to have the brass to do so. I think we’ve gotten [...]

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Central Asia 2014: The Terror

by Nathan Hamm

Yesterday, Eurasia Daily Monitor carried a “[x] in Central Asia after NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan” story, the kind of reporting and analysis that is sure to be a fixture in all Central Asia focused publications throughout this year. This particular story deals with militant groups threatening to return to Central Asia after NATO’s withdrawal. Should [...]

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Central Asia Monitor 11 January 2013

by Central Asia Monitor

Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to Jointly Investigate Sokh Incident Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Committee reported that talks were held between officials from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan regarding the hostage-taking incident in Sokh that began on 5 January. The governors of Uzbekistan’s Ferghana province and Kyrgyzstan’s Batken province, representatives of each country’s border control agencies, and local government and [...]

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Central Asia Monitor 07 January 2013

by Central Asia Monitor

Hostages Taken in Uzbek-Kyrgyz Border Clash Residents of Sokh, an Uzbek enclave in Kyrgyzstan’s Batken province, attacked Kyrgyz border guards and took Kyrgyz citizens hostage in events that began on 5 January, when residents of the Sokh village Hoshyar reportedly attacked Kyrgyz border guards overseeing installation of electricity lines at a border post. The initial [...]

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