By VOA Afghan Service March 29, 2024 WASHINGTON — Last week’s concert hall massacre in Russia demonstrates not only the capacity of Islamic State-Khorasan to stage complex attacks beyond its base in South-Central Asia, but also the inability of the Taliban and regional countries to counter its threats, experts say. The Islamic State group claimed the attack
By RFE/RL’s Tajik Service March 29, 2024 DUSHANBE — Tajik authorities detained nine people this week in connection with the March 22 deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow, local media reported on March 29, citing a security source. All nine were reportedly detained by the state security service in the Vahdat district in Dushanbe outskirts on
By Navbahor Imamova VOA News March 27, 2024 WASHINGTON — Russian media and analysts are reporting a spike in hate crimes and violence against migrants from Central Asia following last week’s terror attack on a Moscow concert hall, which has led to the arrests of seven people of Tajik origin. Responsibility for the attack, which killed at
Tolo News: The head of Tajikistan’s Drug Control Agency stated that drugs from the large reserves in northern Afghanistan are being trafficked to Central Asian countries and the European Union. “The threat to Central Asian countries, especially those bordering Afghanistan, is gradually increasing because the methamphetamine discovered in the region is produced in Afghanistan,” said
Akmal Dawi VOA News February 15, 2024 Afghanistan has cleared its outstanding electricity debts to three Central Asian neighbors and is negotiating for an increase in energy supplies, a move that could signal the Taliban government is moving toward economic stabilization. Landlocked Afghanistan relies heavily on energy imports, obtaining more than 70 percent of its
8am: The Drug Control Agency of Tajikistan has refuted the Taliban’s assertion of a decline in drug trafficking from Afghanistan, stating that there is no concrete evidence to support such a reduction. According to a report from the TASS news agency on Monday, February 5th, the Drug Control Agency of Tajikistan (DCA) conveyed that recent
Roshan Noorzai Mohammad Ahmadi VOA News January 31, 2024 WASHINGTON — The Iranian government has traced this month’s twin suicide bombings in Kerman city to ethnic-Tajik fighters of the Islamic State Khorasan Province who, experts say, are “fairly small” in number but play “an important part” in the group’s military activities. The Afghanistan-based branch of the
8am: Over the last decade, Tajikistan’s foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) have brought their homeland under negative limelight on numerous occasions. The most notorious of them all is Gulmurod Khalimov, who became the IS Minister of War after joining the group in 2015. Before becoming a high-ranking terrorist, he served as the head of the special
By RFE/RL’s Tajik Service January 9, 2024 Tajik militant Muhammad Sharifov (aka Mahdi Arsalon), who is wanted in Dushanbe on terrorism charges, disappeared in Afghanistan months ago, his relatives and friends said on January 8. After taking over Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban rulers appointed Sharifov, 30, to oversee districts along the Tajik-Afghan border. Fighters of
8am: The head of the Center for Afghanistan & Central Asia Strategic Studies (ACASS) adds that the concentration of terrorist groups at northern Afghan borders, especially along the border with Tajikistan, and the expansion of drug trafficking, are perennial concerns… Mr. Iskandar also expresses concern about the relocation of migrants expelled from Pakistan to northern