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13 militants killed in Tajikistan operation, government says

Saturday, 05 September 2015 1:32 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 05 September 2015 1:33 PM ]

Police officers secure an area in the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, where several officers of the Tajik Interior Ministry special forces and a traffic policeman were reportedly shot dead earlier on Friday, September 4, 2015. © AP

Tajikistan’s military and police have killed 13 militants in an operation in the wake of a fatal attack on police by an armed group near the capital, Dushanbe.

The Tajik Interior Ministry released the figure in a Saturday statement after eight policemen and nine militants were killed on Friday in two separate assaults, with the government blaming the incident on former Deputy Defense Minister Abdulhalim Nazarzoda.

“At this time, 32 members of Nazarzoda's criminal group have been detained, 13 of whom have been eliminated,” the Saturday statement said.

According to the ministry, a shootout with the gunmen on the outskirts of the capital left four police officers dead on Friday. In the second incident, another four policemen lost their lives in an attack in the town of Vahdat near the capital.

The militants have seized a "large amount of weapons and ammunition" during the Friday raids, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, authorities added that over 500 weapons and ammunition have been seized from the militant group during the Saturday offensive.

The Tajik government accuses Nazarzoda of fighting alongside the United Tajik Opposition during a civil war that engulfed the country between 1992 and and 1997. The 51-year-old is also allegedly a member of an opposition group that was effectively shut down by the government recently.

The former deputy defense minister was dismissed on Friday "in connection with a crime committed," according to the government.

The Tajik Interior Ministry says Nazarzoda has fled to the mountains northeast of Dushanbe where a huge air and ground search operation has been launched.

Home to about eight million people, Tajikistan is the smallest and poorest country in Central Asia.

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