Eurasia Security Watch No. 167, January 15, 2008
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC
Editor: Jeff Smith

RUSSIAN MEDIA LOOKS ABROAD
Russia may have lost control of its Central Asian satellites with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, but an offensive by a Russian media group is returning Russia’s image to the region in full force. Russia’s CTC Media, a Moscow-based entertainment conglomerate, has announced plans to purchase Kazakhstan’s fourth largest television station. In Uzbekistan, meanwhile, CTC Media is planning a joint venture with local media company Terra group. The Kazakh acquisition has raised the most eyebrows, with concerns that Russia’s motives, as in so many other arenas, are not exclusively economic. Rozlana Taukina, head of Kazakhstan’s “Journalists in Trouble,” gave an ominous assessment of the deal, worrying the “redistribution of the information space concern[s] not only business but also national security.” (Radio Free Europe, December 18, 2007)

KIRKUK’S FATE ON HOLD
A contentious referendum on the status of Kirkuk, Iraq’s ethnically divided but oil-rich northern city, has been delayed by six months, potentially averting a serious crisis. According to Iraq’s constitution, Kirkuk was to hold a referendum to determine whether to join Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region before January 1, 2008. Both Baghdad and neighboring Turkey vehemently opposed this prospect, however, and with UN backing the poll has been delayed until mid-2008 at the earliest. Despite some rumblings from public officials, the Kurdish leadership seems to have taken the decision in stride; not least because of the extra time it provides them to reverse Saddam Hussein’s forced Arabization policy and repopulate the city with ethnic Kurds. (Radio Free Europe, December 21, 2007)

THE TERRORIST PULSE IN TURKEY
A new survey conducted by the Turkish police has provided some interesting insights into the 12 active terrorist groups operating within Turkey’s borders. The militants – spanning the ideological spectrum from leftist, to separatist, to Islamist – prey most heavily on high school and university age Turks, although the majority of them are uneducated by Turkish standards. The Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, the country’s largest and deadliest terrorist group, proved the least educated of the pack, while the Islamist groups proved the most likely to target children, some as young as 10 years old, with over 70 percent of their members aged 15 to 25. (Ankara Turkish Daily News, December 25, 2007)

TERRORISTS FLOOD THE STRIP
Fatah al-Islam, the al-Qaeda inspired terrorist group which was crippled in a stand-off with the Lebanese army last year, has infiltrated the Gaza Strip, according to officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Another Islamist group which currently governs the Gaza strip, Hamas, stands accused of facilitating Fatah al-Islam’s relocation to the Palestinian Territories. PA official Ahmed Abdel Rahman insists Hamas is responsible not only for providing safe-haven to Fatah al-Islam, but for overseeing an influx of radical terrorist groups that have taken root in the Gaza Strip in recent years, including the Army of Islam, Suyuf al-Haq, Qaida al-Islam, Fatah al-Yasser, Hizb al-Tahrir, and the Nasser Eddin Brigades. (Jerusalem Post, December 25, 2007)

SECTARIAN TENSIONS LINGER IN BAHRAIN
Sectarian tensions have again flared in the Gulf nation of Bahrain. The latest flashpoint in the majority Shi’ite nation, which is ruled by a Sunni minority, was the death of a protestor who had been “commemorating social unrest in the 1990s.” The funeral ceremony for the activist led to further demonstrations which resulted in the arrest of as many as 31 people on charges ranging from illegal assembly to attempted murder. Among the possible causes for the violence: widening disparities between the wealthy Sunni ruling class and the marginalized Shi’ite majority, as well as and Shi’ite resentment toward the government’s preferential treatment for Sunni foreigners, who receive offers of citizenship, preferential housing, and jobs in the security forces. (Associated Press, December 27, 2007)