Central Asian Fighters and Global Jihad

Central Asian fighters have been active on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as in various military conflicts across the Greater Middle East and beyond. How are these individuals recruited, financed, and organized? One critical node is the Afghan border with the Central Asian states of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Has their role and influence in global jihadi theaters increased or declined in recent years? And where does radicalization typically occur: within Russia as guest workers, in their home countries, or elsewhere?

On June 23, the Center’s Central Asia Connectivity Project invited a distinguished panel of experts to address these and other questions.

—Dr. Gavin Helf is an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES) at Georgetown University. He has worked on the former Soviet Union and especially Central Asia with USAID and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has taught Russian and Soviet foreign policy, comparative politics and security studies at Notre Dame, Cornell, Moscow’s International University, George Washington University and has guest lectured at the National War College, the U.S. Military Academy, the Foreign Service Institute, and the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, among others.

—Dr. Asfandyar Mir is a Senior Fellow for South Asia at the Stimson Center. Previously, he was a senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where he focused on South Asia and U.S. counterterrorism policy. His research spans international relations of South Asia, South Asian foreign policies and military strategies, U.S. foreign policy toward South Asia, and U.S. counterterrorism strategy. From 2022-2024, he directed a USIP senior study group on U.S. counterterrorism policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dr. Mir is also an adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

—Dr. Noah Tucker is senior research consultant for the Oxus Society, an associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard, and a visiting fellow at the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews. Noah has worked as a consultant to programs supporting returnees from the Syrian conflict in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for the U.S. State Department and U.S. Institute of Peace. He has spent more than six years living and working in in the region, primarily in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and works in Russian and Uzbek.

Andrew Kuchins, Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, moderated the discussion.