Unidentified people take hostage four Tajik border guards

Unidentified armed people have taken hostage four Tajik border guards.

According to RIA Novosti's military source, unidentified gunmen took hostage four Tajik border guards on a sector guarded by the Shurabad border unit. The bandits subsequently escaped to the Afghan territory.

The State Border Guard Committee under the Tajik government neither denied nor confirmed this information.

Nuralisho Nazarov, the First Deputy Chairman of the State Border Guard Committee, stated that a special group had already set out for Shurabad.

One version envisages that the Tajik border guards have been taken hostage by Afghan drug smugglers. According to the same military source, the bandits have already released one hostage.

It is not the first time Afghan drug smugglers take hostage residents of nearby villages on the Shurabad border unit's sector. The source reported that other Tajik citizens were forcibly taken to Afghanistan.