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148 ~ TALIBANwhen they were finally crushed by the Bolsheviks. In another replay inthe 1980s, the USA encouraged the Afghan Mujaheddin to cross intoCentral Asia and attack Soviet army posts. And in reply Soviet troops inAfghanistan frequently called the Mujaheddin 'Basmachis'.Tajikistan remained an underdeveloped, poverty-stricken Republic onthe Soviet Union's periphery. Its budget depended on subsidies fromMoscow. After 1991, tensions between Uzbeks and Tajiks and intra-clanrivalries within the Tajiks erupted. The resulting civil war (1992-97)between the neo-communist government and an array of Islamicist forcesdevastated the country. Once again thousands of Tajik rebels and refugeesfound refuge in northern Afghanistan, while Tajik government forceswere backed by Russian troops. President Boris Yeltsin declared in 1993that the Tajik-Afghan border was 'in effect Russia's border' and the25,000 Russian troops stationed there would be defending Russia. 6 It wasa reassertion of Moscow's role in Central Asia.Ultimately the neo-communist government and the Islamicist oppositionin Tajikistan agreed to a UN-brokered peace settlement, but neitherside had been able to promote a national identity for the fragmented Tajikclans. These internal cleavages and the fact that it 'lacked an indigenousintelligentsia to elaborate a nationalism linking the people to the landand each other', left the country vulnerable to influences from Afghanistan.7 Both sides in the civil war eventually co-operated with Masud, whoto many Tajiks became a symbol of Tajik nationalism as he battled theTaliban. The Taliban added to Masud's image by accusing him of tryingto divide Afghanistan and create a 'Greater Tajikistan' by joiningAfghanistan's Badakhshan province with Tajikistan. Masud denies suchaims. For Tajikistan the Taliban represented an Islamic fundamentalismat odds with the moderate, Sufi spiritualism of Central Asia while Pashtunexpansionism was at direct odds with Tajik aspirations.In Uzbekistan Islamic militancy, partly fuelled by Afghanistan, is themost serious challenge to President Islam Karimov. The Uzbeks — themost numerous, aggressive and influential race in the region — occupytoday's Islamic heartland and the political nerve centre of Central Asia.Uzbekistan has borders with all the CARs and Afghanistan. Its principalcities of Samarkand and Bukhara have played host to countless civilizationsover 2,500 years and became the second centre for Islamic learningafter Arabia. Medieval Bukhara contained 360 mosques and 113 madrassasand even in 1900 there were 10,000 students studying at 100 activemadrassas. The 250-mile long Ferghana valley, with its long associationswith Islamic learning and militancy such as the Basmachis, is the richestagricultural region in Central Asia and the centre of Islamic oppositionto Karimov.The Uzbeks trace their genealogy to Genghis Khan's Mongols,DICTATORS AND OIL BARONS ~ 149branch of which, the Shaybani clan, conquered modern-day Uzbekistanand northern Afghanistan in 1500. Mahmud Ibn Wali, a sixteenthcenturyhistorian, described the early Uzbeks as 'famed for their badnature, swiftness, audacity and boldness' and revelling in their outlawimage. 8 Little has changed in the Uzbek desire for power and influencesince then. Uzbekistan is the largest CAR with a population of 22 million.And with some six million Uzbeks living in the other CARs - formingsubstantial minorities in three of them (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan andKazakhstan) - Karimov has ethnic allies to pursue his agenda of dominatingthe region. Some two million Uzbeks live in northern Afghanistan,the result of migrations before and during the Basmachi rebellion.Another 25,000 Uzbeks live in China's Xinjiang province.Well before Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, Moscow andTashkent were cultivating Afghan Uzbeks to create a secular Uzbekcontrolled'cordon sanitaire' in northern Afghanistan that would resistany Mujaheddin takeover. For nearly a decade that policy was successful.General Rashid Dostum controlled six provinces and with military aidfrom Moscow and Tashkent, held off the Mujaheddin and later the Taliban.Karimov meanwhile led the attempt to forge an anti-Taliban allianceamongst the CARs and Russia after 1994- However, with the fall of Mazarin 1998, Karimov's policy collapsed and the Taliban were now Uzbekistan'simmediate neighbours. Since then Uzbekistan's influence inAfghanistan has waned considerably as Karimov was unwilling to backMasud, a Tajik.Karimov has also tried unsuccessfully at throwing his weight around inTajikistan, where 24 per cent of the population is Uzbek. In 1992 Karimovgave military support to the Tajik government in its crackdown onIslamic rebels. By 1996 when peace talks were under way between theantagonists, Karimov attempted to force both sides to give a greater roleto the Uzbek minority by supporting local Uzbek uprisings in northernTajikistan. Karimov remains opposed to the Tajik attempt to make acoalition administration between the government and the rebels, becauseit would show the Islamicists in a good light - a lesson that would percolatedown to Uzbekistan's own frustrated population.Karimov runs a tightly controlled, authoritarian police state and citesthe civil wars in Afghanistan and Tajikistan as justification for repressionat home. The most significant opposition to Karimov has come fromunderground radical Islamic groups, some of them Wahabbis, entrenchedin the Ferghana valley. Many of these Uzbek militants studied secretly inSaudi Arabia and Pakistan or trained in Afghan Mujaheddin camps inthe 1980s. Subsequently they developed links with the Taliban.Karimov has passed the most stringent laws of all the CARs againstIslamic fundamentalism, from restricting madrassa education to the