Indonesia: Jamaah Ansharut Daulah’s Family Approach and Freedom of Movement Challenges Indonesian Forces Brian M. Perkins Indonesian security forces have launched a significant crackdown on suspected members of the IS-linked group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) following a suicide bombing at a police station in Medan... MORE

The Second Central Asian Leaders’ Consultative Summit—involving the five Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—was supposed to take place during the Navruz holiday (March), in the Uzbekistani capital of Tashkent; but it ended up being postponed several times due ostensibly to... MORE

Beijing’s efforts to expand its power in Central Asia by investment and cooperation with the governments in the region (see China Brief, November 19, 2019; see EDM, April 4, 2019, January 30, 2018, August 2, 2016) are currently being undercut by the reactions of Central... MORE

Tsentr 2019, this year’s largest Russian strategic-operational exercise, involving both Russian troops and seven regional allies and partners, was a highly promoted event by Russia’s state-owned news outlets. According to Sputnik News, the maneuvers (September 16–21) “demonstrated to the world the unprecedented defensive capabilities of... MORE

The Russian Armed Forces staged their annual strategic-level military exercise this past week (September 16–21), alongside units from seven partner countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, India and Pakistan—all of them Moscow’s allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This year’s strategic command-staff exercise (strategicheskiye komandno-shtabnyye ucheniya—SKShU), Tsentr... MORE

Borders in Central Asia have long been a problem. They were drawn by the Soviet government in the 1920s as part of its nation-building effort to divide the communities of the region, and these administrative lines changed many times over the ensuing decades. Yet, they... MORE

At the end of July, Tajikistan and China will hold joint military exercises in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. These ostensibly anti-terrorist exercises will feature Tajikistani air, ground and air-defense forces. The composition of the Chinese contribution has not yet been announced (Avesta.tj, July 9). This... MORE

Introduction In the month of June, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping kept up an ambitious international travel schedule, spending nearly half the month abroad on four major trips: to Russia, Central Asia, North Korea, and the G20 Summit in Japan. Although diplomatic... MORE

“Welcome to your second homeland,” President Emomali Rahmon told his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani upon his arrival in Tajikistan for the fifth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), on June 15 (Radio Ozodi, June 15). The visit comes... MORE

Tajikistan’s military, according to Moscow-based defense analyst Vladimir Mukhin, “today represents a small outpost of the Russian Army. It is completely equipped with Russian arms, has the same organizational structure,” its soldiers and officers are being trained by Russians and in Russian military schools, and... MORE