Tajikistan says four terrorists neutralised in latest incident on Afghan border

• Incidents rising along 1,350-kilometre Tajik-Afghan border.
• Attacks have killed guards, Chinese workers.
• Tajikistan urges Taliban curb cross-border militancy.

Tajikistan officials on Sunday said they “neutralised” four “terrorists” who crossed over from neighbouring Afghanistan in an area where deadly incidents have been on the rise in recent weeks, state media reported.

Tajikistan, in Central Asia, shares a mountainous border with Afghanistan and has had tense relations with the Afghan Taliban regime.

According to Tajik security services cited by the state-owned Khovar news agency, “four terrorists were neutralised” after they refused to put down arms in the southern Khatlon region.

Tajik authorities have reported at least five deadly incidents on the mountainous border, which is some 1,350 kilometres (840 miles) long, since November.

An AFP count using official data found that 16 people have been killed in total.

These include Tajik border guards, Chinese workers and what Dushanbe calls “smugglers” and “terrorists”.

After attacks on Chinese nationals in November, Tajik authorities urged the Afghan Taliban regime to take measures to prevent destabilisation of the volatile border region, where drug traffickers and militant groups are active.

Unlike other Central Asian leaders who are strengthening ties with the Taliban, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon — in power since 1992 — openly criticises Afghanistan’s authorities.

He has urged the Taliban to respect the rights of ethnic Tajiks, estimated to represent around a quarter of Afghanistan´s population.

But Tajikistan is also taking steps towards cooperation with Kabul, through electricity supplies, the opening of border markets and meetings between Taliban and local Tajik officials.

Relations between the two nations took a hit after five Chinese nationals were killed, and several were wounded in two separate attacks along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan in late November and early December.

According to a UN report in December, a militant group, Jamaat Ansarullah, “has fighters spread across different regions of Afghanistan” with a primary goal “to destabilise the situation in Tajikistan.”

Dushanbe has previously voiced concerns about the presence in Afghanistan of members of Daesh in Khorasan.