The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is a militant Islamist group formed in 1998 with the goal of spreading sharia law to Uzbekistan. Tohir Yo'ldosh and Juma Namangani formed the group to overthrow Islam Karimov's secular government and to establish Islamic law in the country, and the group allied with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The IMU benefited from their alliance with the Taliban, as the Taliban allowed IMU fighters to have bases in Afghanistan. In 1999 and 2000, the IMU launched raids on Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan and Afghanistan, but in 2001-2002 the group suffered heavy casualties during the Afghanistan War, when the United States invaded the country and killed several terrorists. Since then, the IMU has fought in northern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, and on 1 August 2015 the group's leader Usman Ghazi pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Some dissidents continued to use the IMU name, with a new faction of the IMU announcing itself in June 2016 and expressing its loyalty to the Taliban and al-Qaeda rather than to ISIL.
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