Terrorists make repeated attempts to infiltrate Tajikistan

Terrorist groups do not cease attempts to infiltrate Tajikistan from Afghanistan, Colonel General Aleksei Kozhevnikov, Deputy Director of the Federal Frontier Service, told a news conference in Dushanbe on Thursday.

The coalition troops are carrying on the operation in Afghanistan fighting with remaining terrorists from the Al-Qaeda net and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Taliban, said the general.

Security and other agencies report that part of the militants have left for Pakistan, but are now trying to return to Afghanistan, including to its northern provinces neighbouring Tajikistan. Minor IMU groups are reported to be attempting to infiltrate Tajikistan. Some of the IMU and Taliban fighters are of Chechen extraction, noted the general.

"They seek to infiltrate Central Asia to go further on to the North Caucasus," the military said, adding that the situation was under the frontier service's control.

The Afghan campaign has not eased the drug threat and the drug dealers, including those based in the country's northern provinces, suffered no damage whatsoever, opined General Kozhevnikov.