The majority of Afghan drug traffickers who attacked Tajik border guards last month had reportedly been serving their terms in Tajik jails but they had been amnestied.
“The majority of Afghan drug traffickers who attacked Tajik border guards last month in the Navobod area of Khatlon’s Shamsiddin-Shohin district had been serving their terms in Tajik jails for drug trafficking but they had been amnestied,” an official source at the Tajik power-wielding structures told Asia-Plus in an interview.
While serving their terms in Tajik jails they reportedly established contacts with Tajik drug traffickers who were also serving their jail terms for similar crimes.
“After being amnestied Afghan drug traffickers returned to Afghanistan but they were continuing to keep in touch with Tajik drug traffickers using SIM cards of Tajik mobile phone operators,” the source said.
He confirmed the information that Tajik special services had identified a group of inmates who had been controlling drug trafficking across the Afghan-Tajik border from a Dushanbe jail. New criminal proceedings have been instituted against those inmates.
Members of this group (two nationals of Tajikistan and one Afghan citizen) had reportedly been in contact with Afghan drug traffickers who attacked Tajik border guards in the Shamsiddin-Shohin district last month.
Recall, one Tajik border guard was killed and four others were wounded in clashes with twelve armed Afghan drug traffickers attempting to illegally cross the border river in the Tajik southern Khatlon province in the evening of December 2.
A statement released by the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) says the incident took place on December 2 at 7:10 pm in the Shamsiddin-Shohin district, some 220 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe, in the area patrolled by the “Bahorak” frontier post of the “Shouroobod” border unit.
Commander of the border unit, Colonel Khairiddin Akhtamov, and three trespassers were killed and four Tajik border guards were wounded in the shootout.
Tajik border guards reportedly found 4 Kalashnikov assault rifles and more than 33 kilograms of narcotics on the spot.
The Tajik side sent a note to the Afghan authorities demanding relevant Afghan structures thoroughly investigate the incident and take measures to detain the criminals.
Tajikistan has a 1,344-kilometer common border with Afghanistan, which is the world's largest producer of opium and heroin.
Clashes on the border between Tajik border guards and Afghan drug smugglers are common as are kidnappings of Tajiks by Afghan smugglers who then swap them for arrested traffickers.
