What is happening in Afghanistan can have a direct impact on Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—six moderate Muslim states with a population twice as large as that of Afghanistan. Now they are at risk of becoming six more “Islamic emirates” if the West does not promptly develop and launch a programme to protect them from the influence of the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist organisations.
Today, the authorities of these countries use various, mostly authoritarian, methods to protect their population from radical Islamic influence. Undoubtedly, the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan changes the balance of power dramatically and makes the secular regimes in these countries extremely vulnerable. Local authorities can only oppose the economic prosperity of the rapidly growing young population to the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism.
Western tech can protect Central Asia from the Afghan scenario | ORF (orfonline.org)
