NATO pullout from Afghanistan to change Central Asian strategic configuration – CIS ATC

(February 12, 2013 – Interfax) The terrorist activity level on the space around CIS member states is the highest in Afghanistan, CIS Anti-Terrorist Center Head Andrei Novikov said at the sixth meeting of center senior officials.

“Afghanistan, a country bordering on CIS member countries, has the highest level of terrorist activity,” he said.

The decision to pull out NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014 has created a new strategic situation in Central Asia, Novikov suggested.

“The entire terrorist and guerrilla activity in Afghanistan after 2014 may be related to extra-economic control over its resources,” he said.

The projected terrorist and domestic military-political activity in Afghanistan will be rooted in the re-division of natural resources and connection of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the energy transit system.

“We are dealing with a new type of state crises, whose models and techniques have been tested. These are the permanent “Arab Spring” and crises of the “Syrian scenario”; actually, we are witnessing local armed conflicts,” Novikov said.

Terrorism is increasingly used for settling problems in rather large scale projects and in economic relations between clans, he noted.

“Experts record a steady phenomenon – terrorist mercenaries. International terrorist gangs of mercenaries attack infrastructure of sovereign states, primarily economic facilities,” he said.