(Reuters) – Tajikistan has launched an “anti-terror operation” in its restive Gorno-Badakhshan province, which borders Afghanistan and China, Russia’s RIA news agency cited the Tajik interior ministry as saying on Wednesday.
The news agency said members of an “organised criminal group” had blocked a road linking Tajikistan and China to “destabilise the social and political situation” in the impoverished former Soviet republic, which hosts a Russian military base.
The operation followed reports of clashes late last year between protesters and security forces in the provincial capital, Khorog, in which at least one protester was killed by police. ].
The protesters demanded a retrial of an activist convicted for hostage-taking.
Dozens of people were killed in clashes between a domestic armed group and government forces in Gorno-Badakhshan in 2012.
(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Robert Birsel)
