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Tajikistan Hemmed in by Violence

July 11, 2010 - 10:21am, by David Trilling

The deaths of six Afghan border guards has become the latest indicator of worsening security in the northern Afghan provinces abutting Tajikistan, AP reports.

Police official Abdul Rahman Aqtash said Sunday that militants attacked a checkpoint overnight in Kunduz province near Tajikistan, killing six border police. He said the death toll could rise.

The Ministry of Interior says militants also killed a district chief in Kunduz by remotely detonating a roadside bomb as his car passed.

The ministry says five more police were killed by a roadside bomb in northeastern Badakshan province.

Over the past two years, Taliban-linked rebels have engaged in increasingly brazen attacks in northern Afghanistan, on the northbound drug route via Central Asia to Russia.

The Tajiks are getting squeezed. With bloodshed to their north in Kyrgyzstan, violence pushing upward from Afghanistan, and mercurial Uzbek officials regularly closing their border, that leaves Dushanbe dependent on Beijing for a remote link to the outside.

Russia has offered border guards. With the annual summer fighting season just kicking off, Dushanbe may have a limited menu of alternatives.

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Tajikistan Hemmed in by Violence

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