Militants ambushed a Tajik military convoy of 80 in the Rasht Valley on September 19. Press reports have 25 soldiers KIA.


Tajikistan Blames Islamist Militants For Attack That Killed 25 Soldiers. RFE/RL, September 21, 2010.

Tajikistan: Militant Ambush Puts Spotlight on Security Situation. EurasiaNet, September 20, 2010.

Borderline Extremism: A Massacre of Government Troops Challenged President Emomali Rahmon’s Long Established Grip on His Country, by Roland Oliphant. Russia Profile, September 20, 2010.
The attack is the most serious attack on Tajik government troops in years. And it is the latest in a series of violent incidents that have shaken the mountainous Central Asian country in the past month. On September 3 a suicide bomber exploded a car bomb outside a police station in the town of Khujand, killing two police officers and injuring 25 others. And on September 5 an explosion in a Dushanbe nightclub injured seven. The preponderance of the violence has led some to speculate that Tajikistan could once again be verging on civil war.

Jail break

The recent spate of violence came after a mass jail break on August 23, when some 25 alleged militants escaped from a high security prison in the center of Dushanbe. In keeping with the foreign connection, Reuters cited government sources who told the news agency that the escapees included citizens of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Russia. It was these fugitives the soldiers attacked on Sunday had been sent to hunt down.