| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Tajikistan forces kill 20 Taleban fighters at Afghan border |
| 2010-09-12 |
| DUSHANBE - Tajikistan’s security authorities said on Saturday they had killed at least 20 Taleban fighters and lost one officer in a clash along the border with Afghanistan. Khushnud Rakhmatullayev, a spokesman for Tajikistan’s border patrol, said the rebels were killed while attempting to enter the Central Asian republic from the northern provinces of Afghanistan, where NATO-led forces are conducting operations against Taliban insurgents. “A clash with the use of grenades and automatic weapons took place on Friday night,” Rakhmatullayev said. “As a result a border officer died. We have seven bodies of Taliban fighters, but there are at least 20 (dead).” The clash took place at a river with the fighters hiding on islands some 210 km (130 miles) south of Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe. Rakhmatullayev said the militants quickly disposed of the dead bodies into the river. Security sources also told Reuters that the number of the dead insurgents could reach 20 or more. “There were 40 of them, and more than half of them were killed,” one source said. Rakhmatullayev said a large number of weapons were found on the islands after the clash, as well as “extremist literature from Taliban, al Qaeda and Islamist insurgents from Uzbekistan”. Separately, Tajikistan’s public television said that as a result of a widespread manhunt authorities recaptured two Islamist militants who were among the 25 escapees from a Dushanbe detention centre in late August. So far authorities have recaptured four of the fugitives, Tajikistan’s television said. The escaped prisoners were among the 46 people given long jail terms on accusations they had planned to overthrow the authorities in Tajikistan, the poorest of five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. |
| Posted by:Steve White |