Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid

DATE January 31, 2002 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Ahmed Rashid discusses the rise of militant Islam in
Central Asia
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

We've learned the hard way about the al-Qaeda network. Today we're going to
talk about extremist Islamic groups in Central Asia, the place that my guest,
Ahmed Rashid, says is almost certain to become the next global battleground.
This is the area that comprises the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Rashid is the author of
the new book "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia." His
previous book, "Taliban," was first published by Yale University Press in the
year 2000. After September 11th, it became a number-one best seller. Rashid
is a Pakistani journalist who covers Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia
for the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Daily Telegraph in England.

In your book you say that Central Asia is almost certain to become the next
global battleground. Why do you think that's true?

Mr. AHMED RASHID (Author, "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central
Asia"): Well, there are very serious problems in Central Asia. The first is
that, you know, 10 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the
independence of these five states, the economic livelihood of 90 percent of
the population has gone down dramatically. There have been very little
investment. There's been no economic reform. People are very angry and very
upset and really not being able to make a living.

The other problem is the lack of political reforms being carried about the
governments, the five governments of the region. There's a lot of political
frustration. Something like 60 percent of the population in Central
Asia--that's about 50 million people--60 percent of them are now under 25
years old. They don't remember the Soviet era. They don't remember the kind
of--you know, how everything--you know, despite the fact that it was a Soviet
system, but everything at least functioned. There was a health system, an
education system. They're only seeing a kind of chaotic breakdown.

And to top it all, there is the introduction of radical Islam, and a lot of
young men are becoming radicalized. Because there's no overt political
activity they go underground. They join these radical organizations which are
seeking the overthrow of these regimes. So there are an enormous number of
problems.

GROSS: How connected are the radical Islamic groups of Central Asia to the
terrorist network that has attacked the United States? In other words, I'm
asking the question a lot of people will be wondering, which is: How much of
the radical Islamic movements of Central Asia are our direct problem?

Mr. RASHID: Well, one of the most militant groups, the Islamic movement of
Uzbekistan, which is seeking the overthrow of not just the Uzbek regime, but
the regimes in Kyrgyzstan also and Tajikistan, had bases in northern
Afghanistan. They were funded by Osama bin Laden. They had something like
3,000 fighters who were fighting for the Taliban and for al-Qaeda. And they
were very heavily bombed by the Americans. They were defending the Taliban
positions in November last year, and several hundred were killed; several
hundred were captured and killed in that massacre, if you remember, of the
prisoners in Mazar-e Sharif. And there have been reports that one of the main
military commanders of the Islamic movement, Joma Namangani, was actually
killed in the bombing, although it's still not clear. Nobody has seen the
dead body. Nobody has got a confirmation. But, you know, several people have
said that he was killed.

So they did have links. I mean, and clearly, the US campaign in Afghanistan
has disrupted the IMU quite seriously. But, of course, it has not really
affected their cells and their activities inside Central Asia itself.

GROSS: Now in your book "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia,"
you write about three main militant Islamic groups in Central Asia, and you
say that although they began with different ideologies and agendas and support
bases, the situation in Central Asia is pulling them together. What are the
things they have in common now in terms of their agendas?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think what they have in common, basically, is opposition
to all the regimes in Central Asia. And they really lost hope that any of
these Central Asian regimes are going to modify their position, carry out
economic or political reforms or start a dialogue with them. I think the
other thing that is linking them is that they all have a political tendency to
see Central Asia as one unit. That is, they would like to see an Islamic
Central Asia under one government. Now that is--you know, they don't see
these borders. These see these borders of the five states as being
artificial, having been created by the Soviet Union and the Communist system,
and they see themselves as kind of liberating the whole region. And one of
them, the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan, even includes parts of Muslim
China--that is the Chinese province of Xinjiang--as being part of what they
call Turkistan; that is the ancient word for Central Asia, the ancient Muslim
Turkic word for Central Asia. They would like to see the Islamic republic of
Turkistan stretching, you know, from the Black Sea, you know, across Central
Asia into China.

GROSS: Well, you say they don't really believe in the borders of these
different republics and that these borders were created by the Soviets. And
you point out in your book that Stalin created some of these borders with the
intent of what?

Mr. RASHID: Well, after the Russian Revolution in 1917, there was a very
bloody civil war between the Communists, the Reds and the Whites; that is, you
know, those elements loyal to the former czar. And much of that civil war was
actually fought in Central Asia, because at the same time, there was Muslim
resistance to the Communists. You know, the people in Uzbekistan, Tajiks,
Uzbeks, the Turkic people of Central Asia resisted the Communist takeover, and
that civil war actually went on for about 10 years till about 1927. But once
it was over and the Communists won, and Stalin was in power, he wanted to
fragment this region as much as possible, simply because he didn't want them
to come together in any shape or form. And you get the creation of five
republics, of very artificial borders which split ethnic groups, which divided
tribes, which even divided villages and towns in a very random way, in a
sense, but in a very methodical way, to make sure that these five republics,
the peoples of these five republics, would never be able to come together
again.

GROSS: So really these five states in Central Asia don't represent organic
boundaries. The boundaries were created by Stalin to keep the area
fragmented.

Mr. RASHID: No, not at all. I mean, if you take, for example, the Fergana
Valley, which is the sort of--always been the political and Islamic center of
Central Asia, where about 10 million people live--that's about one-fifth of
the population of the whole of Central Asia lives in the Fergana Valley. The
Fergana Valley, it's a very narrow valley about a hundred miles long and
about a hundred miles across; it's being divided between three countries.
Stalin divided it between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, splitting the
valley so you've got borders, you know, crisscrossing the valley, making any
kind of normal agricultural activity--irrigation, water supply, electricity
grid--you know, making anything like that, you know, very difficult and very
impractical and very dehabilitating for the population.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Ahmed Rashid. He's the author
of the number-one best seller "Taliban." He's the author of a new book called
"Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia." He's a Pakistani
journalist who's the Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic
Review and the Daily Telegraph in England.

Now the Soviet Union suppressed religions. No matter what the religion was,
they suppressed it, and that includes Islam. So in Central Asia, Islam was
suppressed during the Soviet era, but it's still suppressed under the rulers
of the five republics of Central Asia. Why do they continue to suppress
Islam?

Mr. RASHID: Well, they see Islamic radicalism as a threat. Now the point is
that all the rulers of the five republics in Central Asia are leftovers from
the Communist era. There has been no political change of leadership in
Central Asia during the last 10 years, which is quite amazing. For example,
if you look at what's happened in Russia, with Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin, I
mean, there have been serious political changes. In Central Asia, all these
leaders were former general secretaries of their local Communist parties.
They then became presidents. They said that they would now sort of usher in
democracy. But, you know, for the last 10 years they've had elections, but
nobody's allowed to stand in those elections against them. They win these
elections by like 99 percent of the vote; very reminiscent of the Soviet era.

And I think, you know, what people have been wanting is that, yes, take a
position or take a political stance against radicalism and violence and, you
know, the violent overthrow, but, you know, by sympathetic to cultural
expressions of Islam, natural expressions of Islam. Islam is part of Central
Asian history, part of the culture, part of the tradition. You know, don't
act like a Soviet bureaucrat.

But unfortunately, what we've seen in the mid-'90s has been a very kind of
classic Soviet-style crackdown on all expressions of Islam. So, for example,
in Uzbekistan, if a villager was going to the mosque five times a day, which
is the normal Muslim practice, the police would come in and question him and
say, you know, `Why aren't you just going once a day? Why are you going five
times a day?' And people were hauled in for questioning for very normal
practice of Islam.

GROSS: My guest is Ahmed Rashid, author of the new book "Jihad: The Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia." We'll talk more after a break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. He wrote the best
seller "Taliban." His new book, "Jihad," is about the rise of militant Islam
in Central Asia.

Let's look at the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan. This was formed in 1998.
What are the goals of this group?

Mr. RASHID: Well, initially their goals were setting up an Islamic republic
in Uzbekistan and toppling the regime of President Islam Karimov. But since
then, they seem to be now talking about liberating, as they say, the whole of
Central Asia and setting up an Islamic republic across what they call
Turkistan. And certainly, you know, in their recruitment drive, and many of
their armed militants who they've got in Afghanistan, these groups now include
all the ethnic groups of Central Asia; that is, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Kirghizs,
Uzbeks, Turkmen. And they also have Chinese Muslims, they have Muslims now
from the Caucasus, Chechens, Dagestanis. So it's become a very kind of
Pan-Islamic group.

And the other problem is, of course, that like al-Qaeda and like the Taliban,
they are extremely secretive. They don't give interviews. There are no
photographs of their leadership. They don't hold press conferences. They
don't issue handouts as to what their aims are. So it's very difficult trying
to get a handle on exactly what they want and what they're after. And it
needs a lot of patient kind of investigation, you know, as far as somebody
like myself is concerned, a journalist, to try and dig out, actually, what are
they standing for right now?

GROSS: Now the leader of the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan is Juma
Namangani. There's a lot of secrecy surrounding him, and some people believe
he actually died during the war in Afghanistan. What are his greatest
accomplishments to date?

Mr. RASHID: Well, he's the military commander of the IMU, and he started his
guerrilla operations in 1999 against Uzbekistan, and basically tried to attack
the Fergana Valley, this crucial valley which is split up between three
states. And his aim was to first set up an Islamic republic in the Fergana
Valley and then expand and try and set up a kind of liberated area in Fergana.
He launched guerrilla attacks repeatedly in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and in
Uzbekistan basically to try and gain access to the Fergana Valley, because the
valley is divided by these three countries. He did not succeed, but he
created enormous ruckus, because these armies are not very well-trained, and
they've had no experience in fighting a guerrilla war. And there was all this
kind of mythology around the power of these guerrilla units of the IMU.

And he's been very successful in creating--not so much in being militarily
successful by, you know, killing a lot of soldiers or by actually taking towns
and villages, but he's been very successful at creating a huge political scare
within these governments.

GROSS: Now let me move on to another group, which is the Hizbut Tahir. This
is the party of Islamic liberation, and it's called the HT for short. How
does it compare to the IMU?

Mr. RASHID: Well, the HT has very clear stated goals. This is a Pan-Islamic
movement that wants to create a Muslim caliphate. The caliphate was the
Muslim governance, the style of governance that followed the prophet
Muhammad's death in Arabia. And there were four khalifahs following the
prophet's death, and that period of the khalifahs is seen as the kind of ideal
style of government, you know, in the entire Muslim era. And what HT is
trying to do is re-create that, and what they say is that, `We want to
re-create this right across the Muslim world'; that is, include every country
in one central Muslim government. And the first step in that is to create a
caliphate in the Central Asian region.

So they are Pan-Islamic. They have very wide links, not so much to bin Laden,
but they have very wide links to Islamic groups all over the Muslim world.
They have subsidiary HT groups in the Middle East, in North Africa, in South
Asia. But their most prominent political success has actually come in Central
Asia. They came very late to Central Asia. They only arrived in Central Asia
in about '94, '95. A lot of their leaders are based in Europe. They have
enormous access to technology, the Internet, e-mail. They have a lot of
money, it seems, from donations. And they've been able to spread their
message not so much through fighting, but rather through e-mail, the Internet
and also that they have a very methodical system of setting up secret cells;
five-man cells, and each member of the cell is supposed to create another
cell. So it's a kind of mushrooming growth of cells.

But nobody can really judge how powerful they are because, of course, they're
underground. And what you can judge is that the authorities in Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan have been arresting hundreds of members of HT groups in the last
two years. And, in fact, they've been arresting far more members of HT than
they've been arresting of the IMU. And I think, you know, that's a reflection
of the kind of growing popularity and the growth of this movement.

GROSS: Now HT sounds like, because it has access to the Internet and stuff,
that it gives out more information than the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan
does. But it sounds like HT is still pretty secretive, even though it gives
out information.

Mr. RASHID: Yeah. It's very secretive. I mean, the cell system it has set
up is very secretive. They've very sensitive about not being penetrated by
the intelligence agencies of these countries. But, you know, at the same
time, as you say, you know, they do have a much clearer ideology. I mean,
they want to set up a caliphate. They also say that they don't believe in
violence, they don't believe in guerrilla war. And they expect that one day
Muslims, you know, in Central Asia will rise up in the millions and take to
the streets and topple these regimes.

Now my sense is, talking to young members of HT, that a lot of them, in fact,
are very much in favor of guerrilla war, and they are very anti-America,
they're very anti-Israel. They accuse President Karimov of Uzbekistan as
being a stooge of Zionism and as a stooge of Israel. And I see many of these
young people who are talking in this kind of very militant way as possibly
taking to guerrilla war at some stage, and the leadership of HT may not have
much control over them.

My other major point about HT is that, you know, it's very much an imported
ideology. This is not an ideology which is really rooted in the Islamic
traditions and culture of Central Asia.

GROSS: It's not?

Mr. RASHID: No. I mean, you know, the fact is that the leadership of HT
lives outside Central Asia. Many of them are Arabs. They're not Central
Asians. Much of the kind of propaganda material that is distributed by HT
inside Central Asia is talking about issues which have very little relevance
to Central Asian people. It's talking about the Palestinian issue. It's
talking about, you know, anti-Americanism, anti-Israel. It's not really
trying to address the day-to-day problems of food and prices and, you know,
the economic problems and the social and political problems that the people of
Central Asia face.

And the second issue is that, you know, the HT was a party that was set up
initially in the 1950s in the Middle East. It comes out of the Vajabi(ph)
Islamic traditions of Saudi Arabia and some of the extremist groups from the
Palestinian diaspora in the Middle East. It was not set up by Central Asians.
And consequently, you know, having this kind of Pan-Islamic aim and having
this kind of ideology, which is coming from the Middle East, means that they
have very little understanding of the traditions of Central Asia. Central
Asian Islam has traditionally been very moderate, very tolerant. The Sufi
tradition, or the spiritual mystical tradition in Central Asia, where they
believe in dance and music and participation by women, you know, these are the
traditions of Central Asia, of Central Asian Islam, and HT is very rigid.
It's very anti-Sufi. It's very anti-mysticism. It's very restrictive towards
women and women participating in religious ceremonies.

So, you know, all this kind of goes against the traditions of Central Asia.
Now I fully understand it's becoming popular because it's simply seen by many
people as the only thing that's going at the moment and which is ready to
oppose these regimes. But I think, you know, the Central Asian people are
going to find major problems if they adopt the ideology of the HT because the
ideology is not rooted in the traditions that they know about.

GROSS: Ahmed Rashid is the author of the new book "Jihad: The Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia." He'll be back in the second half of the
show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

(Announcements)

GROSS: Coming up, Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid tells us how he made
contact with leaders of underground radical Islamic groups in Central Asia.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Pakistani journalist
Ahmed Rashid. He's the author of the book "Taliban," which became a number
one best-seller after September 11th. In his new book, "Jihad," he writes
about them militant Islamic groups in the former Soviet republics of Central
Asia: Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Rashid covers Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia for the Far Eastern
Economic Review and England's Daily Telegraph.

Since these radical Islamic groups in Central Asia are very secretive, what's
your approach to learning about them? I mean, how often have you been able to
actually meet with leaders of the group?

Mr. RASHID: Well, Terry, it's very difficult, to tell you the truth. I
mean, you know, since the mid-'90s--well, I've been going to Central Asia
since 1988, and I started going there during the Gorbachev era and the
Communist era. And I've been very interested, first of all, in the fact that
the ethnic groups in Central Asia were the big daddies of many of the ethnic
groups in Afghanistan, which really--and my first interest was Afghanistan,
and that's what took me to Central Asia. I wanted to see where these ethnic
groups came from. That is the Uzbeks, the Turkmans, the Kazakhs, the Kirghiz.

And then I've been very interested in Central Asia and Islam. And, of course,
you know, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the key question was, you
know, that there was an Islamic revival. And in the early '90s, the question
was: Would this Islamic revival turn to radicalism, or would these regimes
take a kind of lenient attitude and foster, you know, local Islamic traditions
and culture? And unfortunately, you know, they failed to do it, and you've
seen the kind of growth of this Islamic radicalism.

And because they're very secretive, it's very difficult. I mean, I've been
going back since the mid-'90s watching the growth of these movements. I
haven't met with the top leadership of the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan.
It's been impossible. I've spent many weeks hanging around, sending people,
sending friends, sending messages through all sorts of roots trying to meet
with them, but I haven't been able to so far. I met with some of the leaders
and members of the Hizbut Tahirese, the HT movement, and it's taken days to
set up these meetings. And very clandestinely, you know, having to meet with
them under the eyes of the authorities, not to get them into trouble, not to
get myself into trouble, it's been very, you know, difficult.

But the problem is that, you know, they are not open. They're very suspicious
of the media, and they're very suspicious of the Western media. I mean, the
fact that, you know, I'm a Muslim perhaps helps to some extent. But they feel
that, you know, the media's in the pay of the intelligence agencies, and so
they're very reluctant to come out in the open.

GROSS: A Wall Street Journal reporter was recently kidnapped. He was
arranging to meet with a leader of a militant group. And they decided he was,
working with the CIA, or something, and he ended up being kidnapped. Are you
afraid of being kidnapped while you're arranging a meeting with a secretive
leader of one of the militant Islamic groups in Central Asia?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I mean, frankly that fear is always there, you know. And
the fact that, you know, the IMU is known to be extremely violent and they
have very little regard for, you know, life and limb of people, which is why,
you know, one has to be very cautious. And I have really tended never to go
in for anything unless I know the contact or the liaison very well. And
unless, you know, people I know well are guaranteeing that I'm going to come
back after this meeting.

So that's why it's very difficult. I mean, I would never go in blind because,
you know, somebody has knocked on my door in my hotel and said, `Well, I can
take you to so-and-so.' I would never accept an offer like that. I wouldn't
take that kind of risk, either in Afghanistan or in Central Asia. I would
have to know exactly who I was talking to, who my contact was and to have some
trust with him.

GROSS: Tell us about one of your meetings with a leader of the HT, one of the
militant Islamic groups in Central Asia. Tell us about what it was like to
get taken to see him and what you got out of it.

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, it took about four or five days of waiting
around for--some friends were organizing this-well, people I knew were
organizing this meeting. And I trusted them, and I trusted that they would
get the right guy and that they would set it up in a way that, you know, I
would be safe. And I was in the capital, Tashkent. I was then taken out of
the capital for a long drive outside the city, and then taken to a place, you
know, where I met this person for about two and a half hours. It was very
clear. I mean, he had a very detailed kind of information about, you know,
how strong they were, how popular they were, where they were operating, what
their ideology was, even how popular they were within government circles and,
in fact, how they had penetrated the army, the bureaucracy and even, he
claimed, the intelligence services. Now naturally, there was no way I could
kind of confirm any of this. But, you know, it was very clear that, you know,
this was a very important leader.

And I put a lot of these questions to him. I said, `Look, you know, I'm a
Muslim, and I've read a lot of books and pamphlets published by the
HT'--which, by the way, are available in English in large quantities in
Pakistan and many Muslim countries. I mean, you can buy them for virtually
nothing. And many of their works have been translated into English and to
many other languages, of course, all the Central Asian languages. So, you
know, I put to him--I said, `Look, you know, I feel that this is very much an
important ideology and, you know, this has nothing to do with the traditions
of Central Asia, of the tolerance of the mysticism, of the Sufiism.' And I
had a, you know, very extended kind of religious dialogue trying to understand
that--`Why are you taking on what I consider to be an important ideology?' I
prefer the Islam of what I grew up in, which is, you know, a Pakistani
interpretation of Islam. `And why didn't you go back to your own roots, which
are so rich in tradition and culture and learning and scholarship?' you know.

GROSS: What did he say?

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, really, he had been, in my opinion, almost
completely brainwashed by HT propaganda, that, you know, `We want to create
this Islamic state right around the world.' And everybody else, all these
non-Muslim countries, the Western countries, are, in fact, cotteres(ph).'
That is, you know, unbelievers. But they ultimately, before the Day of
Judgment and the end of the world, they will also be converted to Islam. So
there was a kind of, you know, very messianic kind of message, and it was
almost impossible to have a dialogue.

And, of course, I have found that also with the Taliban, and with al-Qaeda
over the years, that there is now this kind of concept of global jihad, and I
described global jihad in my book. In these new groups that have come up over
the last seven or eight years, there's a kind of messianic form to them, which
normal Muslims who are steeped, if you like--I mean, I'm not a scholar of
Islam, but, I mean, I'm steeped in my traditions and my religion and my
culture--it's very difficult for people like me to understand this concept of
global jihad and to break through the kind of wall that the proponents of
global jihad set up, which is that don't--Yes, you're a Muslim, but, you know,
you can't criticize us because you are not a full believer, you know. `You
don't understand this idea of global jihad. And you are kind of far too
intellectual and perhaps far too emotional and far too liberal, far too
Westernized--which is why you're not accepting our idea of global jihad.' So
HT are coming from this, you know, very worrisome trend, which is also, of
course, reflected in the Taliban and then al-Qaeda and many groups in
Pakistan.

GROSS: That's a very convenient way of dismissing anything you say, isn't it?
Just accusing you of being Western.

Mr. RASHID: Exactly. I mean, you know, not only accusing me of being
Western, but accusing my knowledge of Islam as being too liberal and not being
motivated enough, you know. And that, in fact, this kind of global jihad is
actually anti-intellectualism, it's anti-scholarship. They're not interested
in having a debate about Islamic tradition or Islamic scholarship or the way
that I might understand Islam or somebody else might understand Islam. They
have a point of view, and anything which kind of criticizes that point of view
is anti-Muslim--or as they see it, anti-Muslim.

And the second point I make to them, all of them--Taliban, al-Qaeda and these
groups in Central Asia--is, `Look, what do you want to do for the people?
What's your economic agenda? What's your social? Are you going to make, you
know, the people literate? Are you going to have a health service for the
people? You know, do you want foreign investment? I mean, how are you going
to develop the economy?' And the problem is that with this concept of global
ihad, there is no social agenda. There's not civic agenda. There is no
concept of civil society and what we, as militants, are going to do for civil
society.

So, you know, this is the other problem. I mean, the HT has an enormous
amount of literature now which you can access on the Internet, you know, you
can buy their books. And there is nothing there about civil society...

GROSS: Well...

Mr. RASHID: ...as to what services you will provide.

GROSS: Well, as you point out in your book, their agenda really seems to be
just about regulating personal behavior...

Mr. RASHID: To a very large...

GROSS: ...in addition to overthrowing the heads of state where they live.

Mr. RASHID: Yeah. You know, to a very large extent it is. And like the
Taliban--I mean, the Taliban said, `We are imposing Sharia.' That is Islamic
law. `And once we impose Sharia, magically, everything will fall into place:
the economy, education, health, you know, foreign policy. Everything will
fall into place. But we have not imposed Sharia yet. But the day that all
Afghans become--you know, follow Sharia everything else will happen
automatically because, you know, God will bless us.' And that's really the
kind of feeling of some, you know, of these other groups, and it's very
difficult to argue against this.

GROSS: My guest is Ahmed Rashid, author of the new book "Jihad: The Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia." We'll talk more after our break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. He wrote the
best-seller, "Taliban." His new book, "Jihad," is about the rise of militant
Islam in Central Asia.

Are a lot of the leaders of the radical Islamic groups of Central Asia people
who were educated at the religious schools in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, such
as the places where the Taliban were radicalized?

Mr. RASHID: To some extent, yes. I mean, there is a large proportion of
them who have been through the madrassahs, the religious schools, in Pakistan
and in Saudi Arabia, but certainly not to the extent of the Taliban. But I
must say, there's a lot of funding that has gone in--from Saudi Arabia in
particular, and to some extent from Pakistan and the religious groups in
Pakistan--a lot of funding has gone in for these militant groups. I mean, the
Islamic movement of Uzbekistan has been hugely funded by Saudi groups, Saudi
charities, Saudi princes, and the Uzbek diaspora in Saudi Arabia. Apart from
bin Laden, I think the main source of funding for the IMU has been Saudi
Arabia.

GROSS: The United States has oil interests in Central Asia. There are
American companies that have bases in Central Asia. How do you see oil
figuring into the future of Central Asia? I mean, for instance, first of all,
you say that the oil companies give a lot of money to the rulers of the
Central Asia republics.

Mr. RASHID: There are very extensive American investments from the oil
companies, oil and gas companies, in Central Asia, because Central Asia is
seen as the last reservoir, if you like, of unknown and untapped oil reserves
in the world, and you know, we don't know more than about 10 percent of the
reserves at the moment. I mean, 90 percent of these regions have not even
been explored yet, so there is enormous interest. And there's enormous
interest for the US to build pipelines out of landlocked Central Asia, which
would not go through Russia, not go through Iran, but come through either the
southern Muslim countries--Afghanistan, Pakistan--you know, or go through
Turkey and then come into Europe.

So there is an enormous, you know, battle for influence that has been going on
over the last 10 years between Russia, the Americans, the Chinese, the
Iranians for access to this oil, and the routes along which these pipelines
will be built. And certainly not that the US has a military presence in
Central Asia--it's set up military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan because
of the war against terrorism--this fight for influence and for pipelines and
for oil is certainly going to increase.

GROSS: Now how do the radical Islamic groups see the Western oil companies
that have set up shop in Central Asia?

Mr. RASHID: Well, certainly, they see them as a threat and as a target. And
I think, you know, if there is going to be a targeted reaction to the American
military presence in Central Asia because of the campaign in Afghanistan, then
I fear that the oil companies in these capital cities in Central Asia could
well be targeted.

GROSS: Do you think that September 11th, that the attacks against the United
States, and then the United States' attacks against the Taliban and
al-Qaeda--do you think they have strengthened or weakened the radical Islamic
groups of Central Asia?

Mr. RASHID: Well, militarily speaking, they have weakened them, obviously,
because, you know, some of them have been killed. Their operations have been
disrupted, their financing from abroad has been disrupted much in the same way
that al-Qaeda has been disrupted. I mean, these groups have been disrupted
very seriously. But I don't think, you know, they have been totally
destroyed.

Now in the long term, I mean, they are going to reorganize. And if the US
military presence in Central Asia is going to remain, there is a very strong
chance that they're going to reorganize on the basis of anti-Americanism, and
try to whip up public feeling that, you know, the Americans are now propping
up these regimes, and that the regimes are evil and the Americans are evil
because they're propping them up.

So, you know, there's a very strong chance that, you know, anti-Americanism,
which is not strong at the moment at all--I mean, there's no real
anti-American feeling in Central Asia. This could become a kind of mobilizing
factor for these radical groups in the future.

GROSS: This week in President Bush's State of the Union address, he talked
about the axis of evil being Iraq, Iran and North Korea. I wonder what your
reaction is to that statement and to the implication that the United States
might be going after terrorists in Iraq, Iran and North Korea, or going after
those governments for harboring terrorists?

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, I really do believe it's going to be a very big
issue. I don't think that going after other countries after Afghanistan right
now--I think the US is going to face major problems. The Western coalition is
not going to hold together. The coalition of Muslim countries is not going to
hold together, for example, if Somalia or Yemen or Iran, even, is targeted.

And unless there's going to be some kind of resolution or some kind of
movement towards a resolution in the Middle East, and the US is, at the you
moment--you know, the US at the the moment is seen by many Muslim countries
around the world, and certainly by the Arab regimes, by the Palestinians, as
being hugely biased towards Israel. You know, going after terrorism is going
to also need a simultaneous effort by the US, I think, to bring peace to the
Middle East and to be appearing to be more even-handed between Israel and the
Palestinians.

GROSS: Now you recently flew to the United States--you're speaking to us now
from New York--and you came here because you have a new book. You also came
here to speak at the World Affairs Council, the Council on Foreign Relations
and to meet with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Nevertheless, when you
landed in the United States, you were detained at the airport for questioning.

Mr. RASHID: Yeah, this happened last time.

GROSS: This was the previous trip. Oh, OK.

Mr. RASHID: Yeah, my previous trip.

GROSS: This was a previous trip.

Mr. RASHID: Yeah.

GROSS: So when was that, exactly?

Mr. RASHID: In December.

GROSS: In December.

Mr. RASHID: Yes.

GROSS: I wonder how you feel about being detained for questioning because,
like, on the one hand, you understand better than anyone the problem of
terrorism. On the other hand, you're no terrorist. You have a pretty high
profile, and a lot of us are really relying on you for explanations of what's
going on. You're one of the great sources of knowledge and information right
now.

Mr. RASHID: Oh, Terry, I don't know what to say to this. No--I mean, it was
no big deal.

GROSS: Well, that's what I was wondering, if you thought of it as a big deal,
if it made you angry or if you thought, `Well, it's ...(unintelligible)
living.'

Mr. RASHID: No, it was no big deal. I mean, it was really no big deal. I
mean, there wasn't any kind harassment or anything like that. It just took a
lot of time up, that was all. And one understood--I mean, you know, the
reasons, you know, for this. And I think, you know, there is a lot of fear
here, and it continues to grow, that there will be perhaps another terrorist
attack on the United States.

I can only presume that the fact is that a lot of these cells of al-Qaeda,
sleeper cells of al-Qaeda, have not been caught. They may have been
disrupted, you know, their finances may have been stopped or whatever, but,
you know, a lot of these guys still around in Western capitals, in Europe, in
the States and even in many Muslim countries. We have just seen what's
happened in Malaysia and Singapore, where two major cells of al-Qaeda were
discovered and broken up and people were arrested. So, you know, this is
going to be a long-term threat, and I think there is going to be kind of a
revenge attack at some stage on American or European targets for what has
happened in Afghanistan.

The other thing is that if some of these cells feel that the police are kind
of creeping in on them and are about to take them, some of these cell members
may well feel, `Well, we might as well carry out an attack now and be done
with it and die rather than be arrested.'

GROSS: My guest is Ahmed Rashid, author of the new book, "Jihad: The Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia." We'll talk more after a break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Ahmed Rashid. He's a Pakistani
journalist who's the author of the number one best-seller, "Taliban." His new
book is called "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia," and he
covers Central Asia for the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Daily
Telegraph in England.

You're from Pakistan. Now in the United States, your previous book, the
"Taliban" book, was a number one best-seller. Now you have a new book. A lot
of us in the media have come to really rely on you for information about a
part of the world that's very difficult to get information from. I'm
wondering how you're regarded in Pakistan, in your own country, if you're seen
as very controversial there. I imagine Pakistan is very divided now, you
know, about about extremist Islam. So are you a controversial figure in your
own country?

Mr. RASHID: Yes, I am. I mean, there's no doubt about it. I mean, the fact
is that I was very critical of Pakistan's support to the Taliban before
September the 11th. That didn't endear me to the military regime there, the
intelligence services, you know, the foreign ministry. And even after
September the 11th when Pakistan dropped support of the Taliban and joined
the American alliance, I was not--and even though now the regime and my point
of view, if you like--you know, we're all on the same side, they haven't
really liked me at all or kind of reached out to me in any way.

And, of course, you know, a lot of the fundamentalist groups see me as very
controversial. They see the book as being a very anti-Islam, anti-Taliban.
There have been, you know, reviews of the book which have condemned me as
being, you know, a stooge for the West, an agent of, you know, of this
country, or that country.

But then there's been an incredible amount of support from people, and
people--I mean, many Pakistanis are grateful for the book, that, you know, it
kind of warned them. What many people have told me that it was very
prophetic, that it warned Pakistan, the government, the people of Pakistan
well before September 11th that, you know, supporting the Taliban was a
disastrous policy.

GROSS: Are you very worried about the future of your country? And I'm
thinking for a couple of reasons. One is the threat of Islamic extremism, and
the other is the possibility of war with India over Kashmir.

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, the spirit since September the 11th has been
very traumatic for Pakistan. I mean, you've seen, you know, President
Musharraf had to do this U-turn after September 11th, that is dropping the
Taliban and supporting the Americans to actually defeat and crush the Taliban.
And then, you know, India then took advantage, mobilized its troops, and now
Musharraf has had to do another U-turn, which is basically to crack down on
these Islamic groups, militant groups inside Pakistan, and some of the
Kashmiri groups.

And this is also very controversial, but I think, you know, by and large, the
general public in Pakistan was fed up with these Islamic groups, because they
were kind of holding the whole of society and the economic and political
future of the country hostage. They were preventing foreign investment, they
were preventing normal education, they were preventing people leading normal
lives and, generally, it's been very welcomed, I think, the steps that the
regime have taken.

The dangers of rollback are still very strong, because at some
stage--obviously at the moment the American military campaign in Afghanistan
continues--at the moment, the fundamentalist groups are not rearing their
heads. But at some stage of the game, they're going to react, and it's not
certain yet how. They could react very violently against both Musharraf,
against the regime, against intellectuals, you know. We don't know how
they're going to react, so the situation is still quite tense.

GROSS: I wonder if you're taking Islamic militancy especially personally
because one of the things it's attacking is your own interpretation of Islam.

Mr. RASHID: Yes. I mean, you know, I'm interested in this intellectually
and politically speaking, you know, as a political expression--militant Islam
as a political expression--interests me enormously. But certainly they can
see my writings as being, you know, not supporting their point of view. But I
think, you know, the Muslim world needs more people to be standing up and
saying that what these radical groups represent is not Islam, and it's
certainly not the indigenous Islam that has developed in a particular country,
whether it's Central Asia or Pakistan.

GROSS: Well, Ahmed Rashid, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. RASHID: Thank you.

GROSS: Ahmed Rashid is the author of the new book, "Jihad: The Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia." He is also the author of the best-seller,
"Taliban." He covers Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia for the Far
Eastern Economic Review and The Daily Telegraph.

We'll close with music by the late Pakistani singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

(Soundbite of music)

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN: (Singing in foreign language)

Group of People: (Singing in foreign language)

Mr. ALI KHAN: (Singing in foreign language)
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