Tajik ministry accuses militants of pushing country to civil strife

DUSHANBE, September 20 (Itar-Tass) - The Tajik Defense Ministry
accused field commanders of the irreconcilable Opposition - Abdullo
Rakhimov and Alovudin Davlatov - of trying to push the country to civil
strife, and said they bear full responsibility for the attack on a
military convoy, in which 23 troops were killed and more than dozen were
wounded.
The Ministry said in a statement that the illegal paramilitary
formation includes militants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia. "This
bandit 'International' is trying to turn Tajikistan into an arena of
internecine war," it underlined.
Tajik secret services added that Abdullo Rakhimov, also known as Mullo
Abdullo, fought against government troops in the Komsomolabad (currently
Nurabad) district east of Dushanbe. He was among the field commanders who
refused to abide by the terms of the agreement on establishing peace and
national accord, the government signed with the unified Tajik Opposition
in Moscow in June 1997. Rakhimov continued to fight, and it was his group
that brutally murdered five personnel of the UN observer mission in the
east of the country in 1998.
In the late 1990s, government troops drove out units of the
irreconcilable Opposition from the republic. Mullo Abdullo retreated to
Afghanistan, where he fought for the Taliban. Last year, he unexpectedly
put in appearance in Tajikistan's Tavildara district. A special operation
to catch him was unsuccessful.
The number of people under his command is unknown. A good knowledge of
terrain and partial support of the population enable Abdullo to easily
avoid the government forces.
Meanwhile, Khodzhi Akbar Turadzhonzoda, a well-known religious and
public figure of Tajikistan, denounced the "barbaric" attack on the
military convoy, in which "soldiers died in performance of their military
duty."
"I resolutely denounce this violence, and I'm sure its supporters will
never achieve the desired results," Turadzhonzoda told Itar-Tass on Monday.
He also said he was praying to the Almighty to "protect the country
from riots and intrigues, and asking peace and calm for the people that
suffered all the hardships of the fratricidal war in the middle of 1990s."
During the civil war, Turadzhonzoda was one of the leaders of the
unified Tajik Opposition, whose shadow government was located in the
Afghan town of Talukan. Realizing the senselessness of continued
confrontation, he led the Opposition's delegation at several rounds of
talks with Rakhmon's government.
The attack on government troops was also denounced by the leadership
of Tajikistan's Islamic Party of Revival, the second largest party after
the presidential People's Democratic Party.
-0-myz/usn