Tajik officials said nine people, including a Tajik official, were killed and 24 were injured during a “counter-terrorism” operation in a volatile Tajik region on the Afghan border.
An officer was killed and 13 soldiers were seriously injured in an operation in the eastern region of Gorno-Badakhshan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said, adding that eight members of an “illegal armed group” were killed and 11 others from the group. that is the wounded.
Tajik authorities have launched an “anti-terrorist operation” in the Gorno-Badakhshan (Mount Badakhshan) region on the border between Afghanistan and China, and the border has long been a hotbed of tension.
“Members of an organized crime syndicate” blocked a highway in the area “to destabilize the social and political situation”.
Tajik authorities claim that the militants have received weapons and support from “international terrorist organizations and foreign mercenaries” and have accused them of trying to undermine the country’s constitutional order.
Officials noted that “organized crime groups did not comply with law enforcement demands to surrender their weapons and ammunition, and organized armed resistance.”
Tensions between the government and residents of this eastern autonomous region have risen since the outbreak of the five -year civil war in Tajikistan shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Source: AFP
Source: Arabic RT
