History, in Uzbekistan, is rewritten as it is made. After a week of retracted reports and behind-the-scenes power brokering that played like “Weekend at Bernie’s” meets “Game of Thrones,” Uzbek state officials confirmed on September 2 that Islam Karimov, the first and only president of Uzbekistan, was dead.

Karimov likely passed well before the official announcement. Uzbek officials were forced to acknowledge Karimov’s grave condition on August 29 after his daughter, Lola Karimova, announced it on Instagram. They then scrambled to manage the story as the September 1 Independence Day celebrations loomed. Karimov, who died at 78, was long dogged by rumors of ill health and had appeared annually at the event in part to demonstrate his vigor, dancing with and greeting his countrymen.

What will happen in Uzbekistan over the next few weeks and months is uncertain, and reliable information is hard to come by. Karimov left no named successor, although all signs point to Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the prime minister, as the most likely candidate. One of the most frequently asked questions regarding the country’s future is whether Uzbekistan, a majority Muslim country bordering Afghanistan, will be overrun by Islamic militants seeking to take advantage of instability.

Karimov died as he lived, shrouded in secrets, discussed by his countrymen through the mish-mish — gossip — that forms the primary source of communication in his insular, authoritarian state.

This is not a new question; it is something of a trope. Westerners have been asking it for 25 years. And the answer is always the same: no.

Despite Uzbekistan’s reputation as a hotbed of Islamic militancy, terror attacks in the country are extremely rare. Islamic militant groups have no substantive presence within the country, and few Uzbeks are interested in joining one. If there is a threat to the country and its citizens, it’s more likely to come from government security forces than from Islamic insurgents.

Karimov died as he lived, shrouded in secrets, discussed by his countrymen through the mish-mish — gossip — that forms the primary source of communication in his insular, authoritarian state. During his 27-year rule — he served first as secretary of the Communist Party before becoming president in 1991 — Karimov repressed the rights of his people and suppressed evidence of the repression.

His control of the country’s information system seems to have outlived him. On August 26, Uzbek officials abruptly announced that September 2 would be an official “day off,” claiming Uzbeks needed time to rest after the festivities. In reality, it appears to have been a pre-planned day of mourning. Late that evening, Karimov was announced dead, and he was buried the next day in an elaborate funeral in Samarkand.

In 1999, when a rare terrorist attack occurred in Tashkent, probably carried out by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Karimov used it as an excuse to arrest thousands who had nothing to do with it.

The perception that Uzbekistan is beset by Islamic militants is a product of Karimov’s propaganda apparatus and his efforts to maintain control. Karimov encouraged Uzbeks to follow their Muslim faith, but in an extremely narrow way that conformed to state directives and acquiesced to state-approved mosques and imams.

In the mid-1990s, he jailed and exiled the politicians who helped write Uzbekistan’s (unfollowed) democratic constitution. In 1998, he shut down thousands of mosques and promptly published a book called “Allah Is in Our Hearts and Souls.” In the meantime, he fanned fears of Islamic militants as a pretext to arrest, harass and kill innocent citizens.

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In the 1990s, the Uzbek government’s main scapegoat was Hizb-ut Tahrir — a banned extremist but largely non-violent group that sought to establish a worldwide caliphate. Hizb-ut Tahrir literature was slipped into the cars and homes of Uzbek dissidents so that they could be arrested. In 1999, when a rare terrorist attack occurred in Tashkent, probably carried out by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Karimov used it as an excuse to arrest thousands who had nothing to do with it.

In 2005, the jailing of popular pious Muslim entrepreneurs spurred mass protests in the eastern city of Andijon, which the government responded to by killing more than 700 civilians, including protesters, bystanders and children. The government accused a Hizb-ut Tahrir splinter group called “Akromiya” of necessitating the use of force, but the organization turned out to have been entirely fabricated by Uzbek state propagandists.

With Karimov’s passing, Uzbekistan enters a period of instability, but it is unlikely to face a terrorist insurgency. Estimates of the number of Uzbek terrorists ranges from the hundreds to the low thousands (no precise estimate exists, in part because of the confusion of what comprises an “Uzbek terrorist”). A large, organized group of Uzbek Islamic militants poised to invade Uzbekistan does not exist; instead, they are separated into often feuding groups and are more interested in what is happening in other countries.

Most terrorist groups, like ISIL, are not led by Uzbeks and recruit Uzbeks primarily as foot soldiers.

So-called “Uzbek terrorists” do not necessarily come from, or care about, Uzbekistan. They can be from Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, countries that all boast significant native-born ethnic Uzbek populations and have been targets of terrorist recruiters.

Many Uzbeks work in Russia as migrant laborers, where they are lured by international terrorist organizations online, with small numbers fleeing to the Middle East or Afghanistan to join them. A few terrorist groups do focus on Uzbekistan specifically — like the Islamic Jihad Union, or the (greatly weakened) Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. But most terrorist groups, like ISIL, are not led by Uzbeks and recruit Uzbeks primarily as foot soldiers.

Almost anything could happen, of course, as Uzbekistan faces its first ever power transition. But what is unlikely to change is the heavy-handedness of the country’s security services — the largest in Central Asia. Nor can the Uzbek government be expected to stop using anti-terrorist policies as a pretext for state persecution. Those have been, and will likely continue to be, a greater threat to the safety of the Uzbek people than Uzbek terrorists ever were.

Sarah Kendzior is a journalist and researcher on Central Asia.