In March 2024, an Islamist commando group massacred 145 people in a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow. The four assailants came from Tajikistan. For the past decade, this small ex-Soviet republic in Central Asia has been one of the main breeding grounds for jihadism. Why?
In a basic shack, an hour’s drive south of the capital, lives Gulrakat. Her home has neither running water nor electricity. Like more than a million young Tajiks, her son, Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, migrated to Russia to find work. But, in March 2024, Dalerdzhon was identified as the leader of the Moscow concert attack. Showing signs of obvious torture, he was paraded on TV. His mother still finds it hard to accept that her son became a jihadist.
“How he could have fallen into this group, I don’t know. I think they tricked him because he doesn’t speak Russian well. Otherwise, he would have understood the danger and been able to save himself.” Now, she looks after his four young children, who will probably never see him again.
If Tajikistan appears to be the new breeding ground for terrorism in the region, President Emomali Rahmon, a former soldier in the Soviet army who has been in power since 1992, has declared war on radical Islam. He has turned his overwhelmingly Muslim country into an ultra-secular regime. Today, women are banned from wearing the hijab or burqa and men are forbidden from growing a beard longer than three centimeters. Minors are not allowed to attend mosques.
Apart from cotton, Tajikistan has very few natural resources. But, thanks to China’s New Silk Road, a tiny minority close to those in power are living the high life. On weekends, bars, clubs and discos are packed and vodka flows freely.