Internal Tensions Among Uzbek 'Migrants' in Syria

Statements and Analysis

In May, tensions between some of the independent Uzbek ‘muhajirin’ (‘migrants’) and the Syrian government came to the forefront, with claims that the government was supposedly targeting independent ‘muhajirin’ for arrest on grounds of Islamic State links while calling on ‘muhajirin’ to merge into the forces of the Ministry of Defence. Some two months later, the tensions persist and only reinforce the earlier point about internal divisions between ‘muhajirin’ who are more closely aligned with the government and those who take a more ‘independent’ line, illustrating that ‘muhajirin’ as a whole are not an ideological or organisational monolith.

This is reflected in two new statements put out by different groups of Uzbek ‘muhajirin.’