BACKGROUND: Islamic Jihad Union founded in Uzbekistan

Sep 5, 2007, 12:17 GMT

Berlin - A Uzbekistan-based terrorist group, the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), was behind the plot to bomb Germany, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Wednesday in Berlin.

He stressed that IJU was not under the control of al-Qaeda, but had been influenced by its ideas. 'They evidently cooperate closely with them,' he said.

German federal prosecutor general Monika Harms added that the movement was made up of Sunni Moslems, mainly active in Central Asia, and had established a cell in Germany last year.

It had formed as a splinter group from Uzbekistan's main Islamist movement and vainly attempted through a bombing campaign to establish a Uzbek state based on sharia law.

Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan in the north.

Schaeuble used the English abbreviation 'IJU,' whereas Harms referred to the group as the 'Jihad Union,' saying it had trained the arrested alleged plotters at camps in Pakistan.

The US State Department first mentioned the IJU on its list of world terrorists in 2005.

Some Islamists have in the past questioned whether IJU really exists, suggesting it is simply a name devised by the Uzbek authorities as disinformation tactic.

In one online Islamist forum, contributors in June contended that an IJU statement may have been forged. That statement promised operations against 'dictatorial infidel governments and their crusader helpers.'