Tajikistan

[davidbfpo]

Part Two by the same author as before, from Open Democracy; which examines the role of external actors (not Russia) who were once useful to the regime, but not now.
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/bakhtiyor-sobiri/tajikistan-so-close-no-matter-how-far?

[davidbfpo]

An article via Open Democracy and subtitled:

Tajikistan is trying to persecute what was once Central Asia’s only legal Islamist party out of existence. But is this really about countering terrorism, or just cracking down on dissent in any form?

Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-rus...led-islamists?

[AdamG]

File under 'poorly planned vacations'

Four cycling tourists, including two Americans, were killed in an attack in Tajikistan, authorities told ABC News. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a Twitter post Monday. A group of seven cyclists was heading north in Danghara district, about 55 miles southeast of the capital Dushanbe, when they were struck by a car with five armed people onboard on Sunday. Tajikistan’s interior minister said that, after striking the cyclists, the people in the car got out and attacked them with a firearm and a knife.

The two Americans, a woman and a man, were killed along with a Swiss man and a Dutch national. Authorities said at the time they believed it may have been a deliberate terrorist attack, although they had not ruled out armed robbery. On Monday afternoon, an IS terror group issued a statement on Twitter in Arabic claiming the attack.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/2-american...opstories.html

[AdamG]

Typical NYT piece -
A Dream Ended on a Mountain Road: The Cyclists and the ISIS Militants
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/w...ke-attack.html

[davidbfpo]

Articles on this country are arely spotted, so thanks to a "lurker" for the pointer to this article in CTC's 'The Sentinel'. The author is a DoD analyst and ex-US Army veteran.

Abstract:

A confluence of factors signals an increasing terrorism threat to Tajikistan from the Islamic State in the near future. In late July 2018, Islamic State attackers conducted the group’s first attack in Tajikistan. An Islamic State Tajik spokesman threatened to increase attacks in Tajikistan the following week. Loss of Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria may force the movement of the significant numbers of Tajik citizens fighting there. Separately, the Tajik group Jamaat Ansarullah reportedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State Khorasan, providing Islamic State Tajiks fleeing Syria a base in Afghanistan to join.

Link:https://ctc.usma.edu/converging-fact...at-tajikistan/

I note the defector from Tajikstan's OMON, Gulmurod Khalimov has a section about him and it appears he is alive, possibly now in Afghanistan. For a resume see:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulmurod_Khalimov

[davidbfpo]

A briefing via The Soufan Group:

Bottom Line Up Front:

• On May 19, 2019, a prison riot in Vakhdat, Tajikistan, left 29 people dead, including supporters of the so-called Islamic State.
• Allegedly orchestrated by militants, government information about the riot is limited and leaves many questions unanswered.
• Tajikistan has seen an uptick in jihadist-inspired violence over the last few years, signaling a worrisome trend for future instability in the country.
• In Tajikistan, counterterrorism is used as a means of suppressing political opposition and as a tool by external powers seeking to solidify a more robust presence in the country.

Link:https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbri...in-tajikistan/