Trio Linked to Jihadist Training Camps

The trio arrested in Germany allegedly attended training camps in Pakistan run by an obscure group called the Islamic Jihad Union, a little-known offshoot from an Uzbek Islamist grouping called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) that fought alongside the Taliban during the US-led invasion in 2001.

Most of the Uzbek group were killed during the conflict but some, possibly in their hundreds, slipped south across the border into Pakistan's unruly tribal areas. Here, led by the charismatic preacher and IMU founder Tahir Yuldashev, they are believed to have established new training camps after being welcomed as brothers-in-arms by conservative Pashtun tribesmen.

The Uzbeks led the resistance to Pakistani army operations against al-Qaida in the tribal areas in 2004. Younger fighters cemented their ties with the tribal community by marrying local women. Pakistani army efforts to capture Yuldashev came to nothing. One general told the Guardian he escaped one raid through a tunnel that ran under an orchard.

Local analysts said they had never heard of the Islamic Jihad Union. "All the people in this region are still with the IMU. We never heard there was a split," said the veteran Peshawar journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai.

In Uzbekistan, meanwhile, the IMU's once-ferocious insurgency against the brutal regime of President Islam Karimov has fizzled out, despite claims by the Uzbek government that there is still a dangerous Islamist threat.

"It's a ghost of a shadow of its former self," Andrew Stroehlein, an expert on Uzbekistan with the International Crisis Group said. "The IMU used to be a threat in the region. But you just don't see it any more. You do see the Uzbek government using the IMU as an excuse for all sorts of horrific actions.'

Ironically Germany - which has a military base in the Uzbek town of Termez, near the Afghan border - has been keen to improve relations with Tashkent. Other EU countries, notably Britain, continue to view it as a pariah state.