President of Tajikistan believes that main threat of terrorism still comes from Afghanistan

President Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan believes that a threat of terrorism still comes from Afghanistan. "The armed groups of the Taliban movement and the terrorist organisation Al-Qaida still have their combat-ready units," said the leader of Tajikistan, addressing on Tuesday the 44th session of the Council of the Commanders of the Frontier Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Emomali Rakhmonov did not exclude the possibility of "acts of retribution" on the part of terrorist groups with regard to the CIS countries which are taking an active part in the international anti-terrorist coalition in Afghanistan.

According to the President of Tajikistan, the hopes that the anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan will result in lessening the stream of drugs have not come true. The tendency of the growth in the production and selling drugs has remained. Last year, the amount of confiscated drugs went up by 23.5 percent and amounted to 8,801 kilogrammes, said Emomali Rakhmonov.

During the five months this year, the growth in the transportation of drugs has increased by 13 percent, in comparison with the last year, said the President of Tajikistan.

Director of the Russian Federal Frontier Service Colonel General Konstantin Totsky said that the expansion of plantations of the drug-bearing plants has swept also the northern parts of the country, not only the south. Laboratories and drug-producing plants are appearing more and more in the northern provinces of Afghanistan.

The main theme at the session of the Council of the Commanders of the CIS Frontier Forces, said Konstantin Totsky, is the fight against international terrorism and the illegal drug trafficking.

The general confirmed the reports in some mass media that groups of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan have appeared in the Afghan border areas and are trying to find ways of transporting people and drugs into the territory of Tajikistan. Two such groups, said the general, were detained at the Tajik-Afghan border at the beginning of this year.

In his turn, President Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan said that the situation on the southern borders of the country and in the region as a whole suggests the idea that the frontier forces of the CIS countries "must constantly be in a high state of readiness, to closely cooperate and exchange information."