SSS officers prevent activities of two jihadist groups 

As a result of operational measures carried out by employees of the State Security Service together with representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the city of Tashkent and the Tashkent region, the activities of two jihadist groups, which had 25 members, were stopped.

One of the groups was created in May 2019, the leader of which left for Syria in November of the same year and joined the ranks of the international terrorist organization “Katibatul Tawhid wa Jihad”.

The second group was organized by a citizen who had previously served a sentence for committing crimes related to extremism and terrorism.

During the interrogation, it turned out that most of the members of the first group regularly maintained contact via the Internet with their leader, who was in the ranks of the militants in Syria.

During their gatherings, members of the group listened to and watched audio/video materials with sermons and calls for hijrah and jihad of the ideological leaders of religious extremist and terrorist organizations, under the pseudonyms “Abu Salokh”, “Abdulloh Zufar”, “Sodik Samarkandiy”. They also promoted extremist ideas among their surroundings.

Members of these groups are citizens born between 1968 and 2002.

Three of them had previously been prosecuted for crimes related to extremism and terrorism but did not draw the right conclusion.

It should be noted that the members of the group include the head of a private printing house, a medical worker, a teacher of the Arabic language, employees of catering establishments, and people engaged in commercial activities.

During the search conducted at their place of residence, more than 200 unauthorized religious books and leaflets were found, computer equipment, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, flashcards and DVD discs were seized in a procedural manner for conducting an examination of the data stored in them. 

Currently, criminal cases have been opened on the revealed facts under the relevant articles of the Criminal Code. Investigative actions are ongoing.

According to the decision of the Supreme Court and the conclusion of the Committee on Religious Affairs, import into the territory of the republic, the storage and distribution of the sermons by “Abu Salokh”, “Abdulloh Zufar” and “Sodik Samarkandiy” are prohibited.