- Incidents are increasing along the Tajik-Afghan border, 1,350 kilometers long.
- The attacks killed Chinese guards and workers.
- Tajikistan urges Taliban to curb cross-border militancy.
Officials in Tajikistan said Sunday they had “neutralized” four “terrorists” from neighboring Afghanistan, in an area where deadly incidents have increased in recent weeks, state media reported.
Tajikistan, in Central Asia, shares a mountainous border with Afghanistan and has tense relations with the Afghan Taliban regime.
According to the Tajik security services cited by the state news agency Khovar, “four terrorists were neutralized” after refusing to lay down their weapons in the southern region of Khatlon.
Tajik authorities have reported at least five deadly incidents on the mountainous border, some 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) long, since November.
A AFP The count based on official data reveals that 16 people were 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 Afghan Taliban regime to take steps to prevent the destabilization of the volatile border region, where drug traffickers and militant groups are active.
Unlike other Central Asian leaders who are strengthening their ties with the Taliban, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, in power since 1992, openly criticizes the Afghan authorities.
He urged the Taliban to respect the rights of Tajiks, who make up around a quarter of Afghanistan’s population.
But Tajikistan is also taking steps towards cooperation with Kabul, through the provision of electricity, the opening of border markets and meetings between Taliban and local Tajik officials.
Relations between the two countries were affected after five Chinese nationals were killed and several injured in two separate attacks along the Tajik-Afghan border in late November and early December.
According to a UN report from December, a militant group, Jamaat Ansarullah, “has fighters spread across different regions of Afghanistan” with the primary objective “of destabilizing the situation in Tajikistan.”
Dushanbe has already expressed concerns about the presence in Afghanistan of Daesh members in Khorasan.
