be "erratic, temperamental, and authoritarian", and frequently ignored orders from the party's political leadership. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan In August 1998, Namangani and Yoʻldosh founded the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) with the aim of creating a militant Islamic opposition to Karimov in Uzbekistan. Yoʻldosh traveled to Afghanistan to establish contacts with the Taliban and al-Qaeda but Namangani remained in Tajikistan. In the summer of 1999, the IMU infiltrated southern Kyrgyzstan, near Osh and later Batken, and seized Kyrgyz and foreign hostages, including a major general and four Japanese geologists, sparking clashes with the Kyrgyz Army. As winter approached, the IMU retreated to the Tavildara Valley. Uyghurs, Chechens, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and other ethnic groups flocked to serve under IMU leader Juma Namangani. These raids had a major impact in Central Asia, and resulted in considerable international pressure on Tajikistan, not least from Karimov, to expel the IMU from its base in the Tavildara Valley. The IRP persuaded their former ally Namangani to leave in late 1999, and in November approximately three hundred IMU fighters, and their families, were escorted by Russian troops to the border with Afghanistan, where they were welcomed by the Taliban and lodged in Mazar-i-Sharif. In return for sanctuary and freedom to operate against Uzbekistan, the IMU supported the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. Namangani and Yoʻldosh frequently visited Kandahar to meet Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar "to plan strategy and negotiate for arms, ammunition, and money". Namangani reportedly raised more than US$20 million from bin Laden in early 2000, and another US$15 million from foreign financiers, with which he equipped and trained his forces. The IMU also funded itself through the opium trade—according to Interpol's Ralf Mutschke, 60 percent of exports of opium produced in Afghanistan transited through Central Asia, and Namangani's group may have controlled 70 percent of that trade. In July 2000, Namangani returned to the Tavildara Valley with several hundred fighters, and from there covertly deployed his fighters into Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In Uzbekistan, heavy fighting took place in the southeastern Surxondaryo Region for a month before the military forced the IMU's fighters to retreat from their mountain strongholds to Tajikistan. In Kyrgyzstan, Namangani's fighters kidnapped ten mountain climbers, including four Americans, who were freed following clashes with the military. These incursions prompted the United States to designate the IMU a Foreign Terrorist Organization on 25 September. Also in late