DUSHANBE: Tajikistan officials on Sunday said they “neutralised” four “terrorists” who crossed over from neighbouring Afghanistan in an area where deadly incidents have been on the rise in recent weeks, state media reported.
Tajikistan, in Central Asia, shares a mountainous border with Afghanistan and has had tense relations with Kabul’s Taliban authorities.
According to Tajik security services cited by the state-owned Khovar news agency, “four terrorists were neutralised” after they refused to put down arms in the southern Khatlon region.
Tajik authorities have reported at least five deadly incidents on the mountainous border, which is some 1,350 kilometres (840 miles) long, since November.
An AFP count using official data found that 16 people have been killed in total. These include Tajik border guards, Chinese workers and what Dushanbe calls “smugglers” and “terrorists”.
After attacks on Chinese nationals in November, Tajik authorities urged the Taliban government to take measures to prevent destabilisation of the volatile border region, where drug traffickers and militants are active.
In December, five people were killed in an armed clash on the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, according to Tajik state media. It added that the people killed in the clash included “three terrorists” and two Tajik border officers.
Dushanbe is also concerned about the presence in Afghanistan of members of the terrorist organisation Islamic State in Khorasan.
