Tajiks Begin Hunt for Islamist Terrorists

Tajikistan Hunts Killers of 23 Soldiers

VoA News: Security forces in Tajikistan are hunting for Islamist militants blamed for killing at least 23 soldiers during an ambush on a military convoy.

The attack happened Sunday as the military vehicles traveled to the Rasht valley region, about 75 kilometers from the Afghan border.

Military officials dispatched helicopter gunships to search for the suspects in a remote, mountainous area about 250 kilometers east of the capital, Dushanbe. The area is known as a haven of Islamist militants.

Tajikistan’s defense ministry says the ambush was led by radical Islamist commander Mullo Abdullo and anti-government leader Alovuddin Davlatov. Both fought against the Tajik government during a civil war between 1992 to 1997. After the war, Abdullo fled to Afghanistan, but he is believed to have returned to Tajikistan during the last year.

A Defense Ministry spokesman called the ambush a “terrorist act.” He said the attackers included natives of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Chechnya.

Tajik officials say Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have been trying to enter Tajikistan from northern Afghanistan to flee operations by NATO-led forces.

Earlier this month, Tajik officials said at least 20 Taliban-linked militants were killed in an hours-long gunfight along the border with Afghanistan.

Tajikistan is a majority-Muslim country and the poorest state to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Central Asian nation has been on alert following a string of recent attacks that the government blames on Islamist militants.

In August, 25 al-Qaida-linked militants broke out of a jail in Dushanbe, killing six prison guards. Earlier this month, a suicide bombing at a police station in the town of Khujand killed two people. Days later, a bomb exploded at a disco in the capital, wounding seven people.