The first nine months of this year have reportedly seen twenty-two engagements between Tajik border guards and armed drug smugglers along the Tajik-Afghan border. Eleven drug smugglers were killed and 32 others were detained.
“Over the report period, Tajik border guards have seized more than 1,300 kilograms of narcotic drugs,” Mohammad Ulughkhojayev, a spokesman for the Main Border Guard Directorate at the State Committee for National Security (SCNS), told Asia-Plus in an interview.
A totaled reportedly included some 87.2 kilograms of heroin, 472.5 kilograms of raw opium, 605.5 kilograms of hashish, 183.8 kilograms of cannabis and 127.7 kilograms of other types of narcotic drugs.
Over the same nine-month period, Tajik border guards have seized twenty-one firearms, 1,000 bullets of different caliber, 119 hand grenades and explosives as well as 28 units of fire, Ulughkhojaev said.
