Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
New York’s Uzbek community struggles to understand Tuesday’s terror attack.
Community not known for being very religious
NEW YORK — Sukhrob Sobirov was 20 when he left Uzbekistan with his parents and sister in 2009 and emigrated to the U.S. through a visa lottery program.
The family relied on relatives at first but eventually settled into life in Brooklyn. Sobirov learned English, got a job managing his uncle’s restaurant and married and had a daughter with another immigrant from Uzbekistan.
His U.S. beginnings are typical among the thousands of Muslim immigrants who have arrived from the former Soviet republic over the past decade — including Sayfullo Saipov, the 29-year-old charged in Tuesday’s terror attack in Manhattan that killed eight people.
Saipov immigrated through the same visa program in 2010, used family contacts to get a job as a trucker, and married and had three children with an immigrant from his home country.
The similarities end, however, with what authorities say was a conversion from moderate Islam to extremism. Authorities said Saipov carried out the attack — using a rented truck to mow down people on a crowded bicycle path — in the name of the Islamic State, which two days later claimed responsibility in its weekly newsletter.
Now the Uzbek community in the United States is struggling to understand how one of its own could have carried out such an attack.
In interviews in the Kensington and Sheepshead Bay neighborhoods
of Brooklyn, home to a significant Uzbek population, many were quick to point out that while the country is predominantly Muslim, most are not very religious let alone extreme in their views.
“We were shocked, we were surprised,” Sobirov said. “How could this guy do this?”
Shavkat Tashmatov, a professional singer from Uzbekistan, lived in Tajikistan and the United Arab Emirates and earned a good living, he said. But he repeatedly entered the visa lottery in hopes of giving his children better opportunities, finally winning a slot and moving to the U.S. in 2012.
Tashmatov, 46, grew up Muslim but said he is “not at all” religious — which is typical among Muslims from Uzbekistan, where governments dating back to its Soviet days have quickly cracked down on extremism.
“Even in Uzbekistan it is hard to find radical people,” he said. “Why here? I don’t understand.”
Sitora Ashrafova, a community organizer who immigrated with her family 10 years ago, said Uzbeks’ moderate approach to Islam back home carried over to the U.S.
“You wouldn’t really find them in mosques,” she said. “Unless it’s a religious holiday like Eid — only on that day people might make some kind of effort and go to a mosque and pray.”
She was worried the attack would destroy the reputation of the entire community.
“We are proud of who we are,” she said. “This person does not represent Uzbekistan, let alone Islam.”