Jumma Xojiyev

Jumaboi Ahmadjonovich Khodjiyev (12 June 1969 – 9 November 2001), better known by the nom de guerre Juma Namangani, was an Uzbek Islamist militant with a substantial following who co-founded and led the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) with Tohir Yo'ldosh. The IMU received substantial Taliban patronage, and was allowed to operate freely in northern Afghanistan.

Biography

Namangani was born in Namangan, located in the Fergana Valley, on 12 June 1969. He fought in the Soviet–Afghan War as a paratrooper in the Soviet Army, into which he had been conscripted in the late 1980s.

Tajikistani Civil War

Namangani fled to southern Tajikistan in 1992, Namangani and Yoʻldosh founded the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) with the aim of creating a militant Islamic opposition to Karimov in Uzbekistan.

These raids had a major impact in Central Asia, and resulted in considerable international pressure on Tajikistan, not least from Karimov, to expel the IMU from its base in the Tavildara Valley. The IRP persuaded their former ally Namangani to leave in late 1999, and in November approximately three hundred IMU fighters, and their families, were escorted by Russian troops to the border with Afghanistan, where they were welcomed by the Taliban and lodged in Mazar-i-Sharif. In return for sanctuary and freedom to operate against Uzbekistan, the IMU supported the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. Namangani and Yoʻldosh frequently visited Kandahar to meet Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar "to plan strategy and negotiate for arms, ammunition, and money". Namangani reportedly raised more than US$20 million from bin Laden in early 2000, and another US$15 million from foreign financiers, with which he equipped and trained his forces. The IMU also funded itself through the opium trade—according to Interpol's Ralf Mutschke, 60 percent of exports of opium produced in Afghanistan transited through Central Asia, and Namangani's group may have controlled 70 percent of that trade. In Kyrgyzstan, Namangani's fighters kidnapped ten mountain climbers, including four Americans, who were freed following clashes with the military. According to the United States Department of State, the trial "failed to conform to international standards for the protection of the human rights of the defendants",

Death Namangani was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001. Rumors of his death started in mid-November 2001 but were inconsistent about the circumstances, location and timing. The Taliban, however, claimed he died in an airstrike in or near Kabul, the Afghan capital, and was buried secretly in Logar Province. Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir reported that Namangani died on 6 November 2001 in Mazar-i-Sharif and was eulogized, together with Mohammed Atef, in a speech by Osama bin Laden on 8 November 2001.

In late December, in a joint press conference with Karimov, Rahmon claimed having "accurate and reliable information" of Namangani's death. General Tommy Franks, who led the American invasion of Afghanistan, stated in a press conference in Tashkent on 24 January 2002 that "the information that I have reflects that Namangani is dead", and in a later conference (again in Tashkent) on 23 August 2002 expressed that "the information that ... we've had for some time indicates that he probably is not still alive". However, a report by the National Security Council of Kyrgyzstan in July 2002 stated that Namangani "had recovered from wounds sustained the previous winter and was gathering forces in the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan".