DUSHANBE, November 1, 2010, Asia-Plus — Rescuers from the Committee for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense (CES) are continuing the search operation for the bodies of officers from the special operations unit, Alpha, of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) that were killed in a helicopter crash in Rasht district.
The source at the CES told Asia-Plus today that the body of one more Alpha officer was found in the Surkhob River yesterday. “He is Warrant Officer Suhrob Mirzoyev,” the source said, noting that the search for the bodies of two other Alpha officers is being continued.
We will recall that seven National Guard personnel and 19 servicemen of the SCNS special operations unit, Alpha, were killed and one serviceman of the SCNS special operations unit was seriously injured after the National Guard helicopter crashed in Rasht district in early October.
As it had been reported earlier, the Russian-built MI-8 of the National Guard went down in Kamarob Gorge in Rasht district, some 200 kilometers east of Dushanbe, in the morning of October 6. According to the preliminary data, the crash was apparently caused by a technical problem. It was the second reported crash of a military helicopter in Rasht during the ongoing military operation in the area.
Tajik government forces launched a special operation to apprehend former opposition fighters in Rasht on September 22 following an ambush in Kamarob Gorge on September 19, in which at least 28 army conscripts were killed.
