KHUJAND, July 17, 2013, Asia-Plus — Nineteen alleged extremists, including 16 members of Jamaat Ansarullah and three members of the Jundullah group, have been detained in Sughd province over the first six months of this year.
Chief of the Interior Ministry’s office for Sughd, Major-General Sharif Nazarov, stated this at a news conference in Khujand on July 17.
Nazarov noted that the Jundullah members had come to light in Tajikistan for the first time. According to him, two other alleged members of Jamaat Ansarullah have been killed during a special operation.
“All of those detained were trained in special camps in Pakistan and they came to Sughd province for the purpose of committing terrorist acts,” Nazarov said.
“While searching homes of those detained, law enforcement officers found one Makarov pistol, two Baykal pistols, notebook with instructions how to make explosive devices and prepare and commit terrorist acts, seven flash cards, two modems of Megafon and MTS companies, 14 mobile phones, 20 subscriber identity module (SIM) cards for mobile phones, etc,” the Sughd chief police officer noted.
“Investigation has established that 79 residents of Sughd have been trained in special camps in foreign countries,” Nazarov added.
Jundullah (Soldiers of God) is a violent and banned Islamic terrorist group in Pakistan closely tied to Al Qaeda and the Taliban (not to be confused with the Iran-based group of the same name led by Abdomalek Rigi). The group is reportedly wanted in connection to a wide range of terrorist attacks, most famously the June 10, 2004 attempted assassination attempt on the convoy of Ahsan Saleem Hyat, the then Karachi Corps Commander.
Jamaat Ansarullah, also known as the Society of Allah’s Soldiers, first came to light in September 2010 when the heretofore unknown organization claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on September 3 in Khujand. An explosives-packed car rammed into the building of the organized crime department of the regional police, killing two officers and two civilians and wounding 28 people. The suicide bomber was local resident Akmal Karimov, who was reportedly trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In September 2011, Jamaat Ansarullah issued several videos calling on Tajikistan’s citizens to embrace jihad against “infidels” and urging them to take action to support the implementation of Islamic Sharia law. “Those who pray namaz, who follow fasting rules but support democracy are nonbelievers,” a man on the video said. “Allah is killing nonbelievers by our hands and, thus, blesses us.” Some politicians and experts, however, doubt whether these videos can really be traced back to Jamaat Ansarullah.
