DUSHANBE, Tajikistan: Tajikistan said on Friday it had killed three drug traffickers crossing over from Afghanistan, in the latest clash on their mountainous border.
Tajikistan shares a 1,350-kms frontier with Afghanistan and has tense relations with the Taliban authorities.
The Khovar state news agency quoted Tajik officials as saying that three out of five “drug traffickers” were killed in the southern Khatlon region after showing “armed resistance”.
Two others “managed to escape towards Afghanistan under the cover of darkness.”
This is the sixth deadly incident on the border that Tajikistan has reported since November.
According to a count by AFP based on official Tajik data, 19 people have been killed in total.
These include Tajik border guards, Chinese workers and what Dushanbe calls “smugglers” and “terrorists”, without providing details.
Tajikistan has called on the Taliban authorities to address the incidents to avoid destabilising the volatile border region -- where some militant groups including Jamaat Ansarullah and Islamic State-Khorasan operate.
Tajikistan´s longtime ruler Emomali Rakhmon has been critical of the Afghan authorities and has urged Kabul to respect the rights of ethnic Tajiks who account for a fourth of Afghanistan´s population.
