(Itar-Tass) - Tajik police potted 12 gunnies in an anti-terrorist operation in the east of the country. Three special task force coppers were banged, and several others were maimed, the republic's Interior Minister Abdurakhim Kakhkharov told a news conference on Wednesday."The operation involving all law-enforcement agencies is being held in the Rasht district with the view of detecting and neutralizing the gunnies involved in the attack on the military convoy on September 19, in which 28 soldiers and officers were murdered on the spot or died later in hospital," Kakhkharov said.
Two groups of gunnies led by former field commanders of the irreconcilable opposition Abdullo Rakhimov and Alovudin Davlatov are fighting the government forces.
"The operation is taking place in the remote and hard-to-access Kamarog Gorge. The situation in the Rasht district is fully under the authorities and law-enforcement bodies' control," the Tajik police chief underlined.
Speaking about the bad turban and terrorist underground in the country, he said two al Qaeda turbans, 7 members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and eight supporters of the Tablighi Jamaat
A group of itinerant preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms...
movements were tossed into the calaboose in the past nine months. The operation of these organizations is banned in the territory of the country.
Overnight to August 23, 25 inmates beat feet from a remand prison in Dushanbe, vaunted as the tightest security facility.
Which doesn't say much for Tadjik jugs...
| But does bespeak a certain lack of imagination on the part of the inmates until recently. What triggered the change, d'you suppose? |
Independent observers said the eastern region of Tajikistan, during the Civil War, was the stronghold of the Opposition and has remained the main source of instability since.
On Monday, Tajikistan's Foreign Minister Khamrakhon Zarifi said the republic has all the means and opportunities to restore order in the eastern region of the country on its own, and does not need the assistance of third countries. Zarifi acknowledged however that the situation had aggravated in the region some time ago, but "not to the extent where it can threaten the country's national security."
According to the foreign minister, "one or two terrorist groups are operating in the mountains, but the government has enough forces there to keep the situation under control."
Speaker of the national parliament Shukudzhon Zukhurov has been in the Rasht district with a peace mission since October 13. Unofficial sources said the speaker, who is a native of the region, had met with residents of several districts, and urged the elders to help bring the young people -- led astray by the gunnies -- back to peaceful life.
The same sources said the authorities had sent messages to the hard boyz offering them to surrender in exchange for the president's amnesty guarantees.