The Tajik interior ministry said 114 members of the terrorist group were arrested in a “counter-terrorist operation” in eastern Tajikistan, where armed clashes are ongoing.

Nine people, including a soldier, and eight members of an “illegal armed group” were killed Wednesday during an operation in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region near the border with Afghanistan.

Gorno-Badakhshan is a vast mountainous region in the Pamir Mountains, occupying about half of the area of ​​Tajikistan, but inhabited by only 200,000 people out of the nine million population of the country. The region is located on the border with Afghanistan, China and Kyrgyzstan. The “anti-terrorist operation” was launched amid growing tensions in recent months with local figures, especially with supporters of Mammadbokir Mammadbokirov, whom Tajik authorities describe as a “leader of a criminal group.”

The authorities shut off the Internet throughout the region for several months.