DUSHANBE, August 7, 2015, Asia-Plus – Radio Liberty reports the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) is not only allied to the Islamic State (IS) group, it now considers itself part of it.
In a video viewed by RFE/RL on August 6, IMU leader Usmon Ghazi and his fighters are shown taking an oath of allegiance, in Arabic, to IS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The confirmation of subservience, coming directly from Ghazi, would be significant in and of itself. But the leader of the extremist group active in Pakistan and Afghanistan does not stop there.
Ghazi goes on to say, according to a narrator”s translation of his oath, that “from now on we are not just a movement, we are a state.” IMU fighters, he says, should henceforth be described as IS fighters from the Khorasan region.
The declaration is reportedly significant because it is the latest, and perhaps final, step of the IMU”s journey to full absorption into the IS, which seeks to establish a vast caliphate centered on the Middle East and extending into Asia.
The video does not state when it was filmed, but it appears to show scenes from Afghanistan and describes itself as representing the Khorasan Vilayat, or Khorasan region.
In January, an Islamic State spokesman announced the group”s expansion into Khorasan — an ancient province that included parts of modern Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The video”s emergence comes shortly after the IMU issued a statement in which outlined its grievances with the Afghan Taliban, with which it has had longstanding relations, according to Radio Liberty.
In the August 2 statement obtained by RFE/RL”s Uzbek Service, the IMU accused the Taliban of lying about the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar, and demanded that it tell the truth about the late Taliban leader”s demise.
Afghan officials announced on July 29 that Omar died in 2013 in Pakistan, and the Taliban confirmed the news shortly thereafter, although without naming a time or place.
The IMU statement declared that the Taliban “cannot be trusted,” and accused the Afghan militant group of collaboration with Pakistan”s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
The IMU mainly consists of men and women from Uzbekistan and other former Soviet Central Asian republics. Aside from its relations with the Taliban, it was also known to have ties to Al-Qaeda.
It is on the U.S. State Department”s list of foreign terrorist organizations and is banned in Central Asia’s nations and in Russia.
