The Tajik interior ministry said Wednesday that nine people were killed and 24 wounded during an “anti-terrorist” operation in the east of the Central Asian country.
A soldier was killed and 13 others were injured when a firebomb was thrown at a convoy of the National Security Committee of Tajikistan, and eight members of an “illegal armed group” were killed and 11 others were wounded. The department said that more than 70 members of this “terrorist group” were detained.
The report says that about 200 people belonging to “organized criminal groups” and armed blocked the highway and the road in the Gorno-Badashkhan Autonomous Region on the border with Afghanistan. In the morning, Tajikistan announced the launch of an “anti-terrorist operation” in this vast and largely uninhabited territory, amid escalating tensions in recent months with a regional official. “In order to ensure the safety of citizens and public safety, the security forces launched an anti-terrorist operation,” the ministry said, accusing these “criminal groups” of being financed by “extremist organizations and foreign terrorists.”
