Radio Liberty says four Islamic State (IS) extremists that Dushanbe is trying to extradite from Syria include Tajik militants linked to dozens of terrorist attacks and a notorious online propaganda campaign aimed at recruiting fighters to the Islamic State (IS) terror group.
The Prosecutor-General’s Office in Dushanbe says Tajik authorities “have established” that Parviz Saidrahmonov and Tojiddin Nazarov are currently being held at “prisons in Syria and Iraq” after being captured by Kurdish forces.
“We are completing paperwork to repatriate Saidrahmonov…and we hope he will be brought back to Tajikistan in the coming days,” Muzaffar Yusufi, a representative of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, told reporters in Dushanbe on January 28.
“Besides Saidrahmonov, some other militants who were engaged in recruiting Tajik citizens to the terrorist group will be extradited, too,” Yusufi said.
Yusufi didn’t provide further details about the other extremists that are being sought.
But sources close to law enforcement agencies in Dushanbe told RFE/RL that two others on the extradition list are Dilovar Dodoyev and Abdulahad Nazarov. Both Tajik men were arrested in Syria in 2019.
While Tajikistan has already repatriated dozens of family members of IS fighters, Dushanbe’s current effort marks the first time the Tajik government has sought the extradition of Tajik IS extremists imprisoned in the Middle East, according to RFE/RL.
Parviz Saidrahmonov – who is also known as Abu Daoud — was one of the first Central Asians to join IS in 2014 and undertake its online propaganda work as a zealous recruiter. The 33-year-old Saidrahmonov appeared in a November 2019 Turkish television report about IS fighters arrested in Afrin in northern Syria.
Tojiddin Nazarov — a 33-year-old who also is known as Abu Osama Noraki — is considered by Dushanbe to be among the “most dangerous IS recruiters” from Tajikistan. Authorities say his recruitment efforts attracted dozens of Tajiks who joined the extremist group. Nazarov joined the IS extremist group in 2014. He was captured by Syrian Kurdish forces. He is currently thought to be held at a prison in Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria.
Dilovar Dodoyev reportedly came to the attention of Tajik authorities in 2015 when he appeared in an IS propaganda video alongside Gulmurod Halimov, a former Tajik police colonel who became the extremist group’s so-called “war minister.” In February 2019, Kurdish forces announced that the 30-year-old Dodoyev had been arrested while trying to cross into Turkey from Syria. Dodoyev — a former soccer coach from Tajikistan’s northern city of Istaravshan – is thought to have been close to Halimov. But little else is known about him. Tajik authorities say they think Dodoyev could provide valuable information about Halimov.
The fourth man on Tajikistan’s extradition list, Abdulahad Nazarov, surrendered to Syrian Kurdish forces early in 2019. He is former taxi driver from Vahdat Township and is not related to Tojiddin Nazarov. In a video interview shared by Reuters, Abdulahad Nazarov claimed that he has long been disillusioned with IS and that he’d tried several times to flee the extremist group. He traveled to Syria in 2016 after he’d finished serving a one-year prison sentence in Tajikistan on hooliganism charges.
The government’s official line is that IS fighters or family members stranded abroad would create a security risk for Tajikistan in the long run.
Including women and children, some 2,000 citizens from Tajikistan have traveled to Syria and Iraq since 2014. An unknown number of them were killed in fighting and air strikes.
