DUSHANBE -- Knowledgeable Tajiks are debating whether fewer of their compatriots are falling for recruiting propaganda from the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported June 22.
Tajik authorities suspect that 2,000 of their citizens have gone abroad to fight since 2011 in countries like Syria and Iraq, a source in the Interior Ministry (MVD) told RFE/RL. Of that number, they are certain that 1,300 did.
However, the flow of Tajik militants to the Middle East has slowed recently for various reasons, including outreach and information campaigns, widely publicised descriptions by ex-militants of the horrors they witnessed and a demoralising string of defeats suffered by ISIL, the anonymous MVD source and Khudoiberdy Kholiknazar, director of the Strategic Research Centre under the President of Tajikistan, told RFE/RL.
Faridun Khodizoda, an independent Dushanbe-based religious scholar, was more pessimistic.
ISIL might be seeking fewer Tajiks to go fight in the MIddle East, but it has changed its strategy, he said. "ISIL ... is trying to keep its members in their own countries for any coming eventuality," he told RFE/RL. "The Central Asian countries seem not to understand ISIL's new tactic and so far haven't responded to it."
