The security situation in Tajikistan has destabilized lately. On September 19, a military convoy transporting national army servicemen was attacked in the Rasht region. Twenty-six officers and soldiers were killed and ten wounded. The Tajik authorities accused former field commanders of the United Tajik Opposition for the attack. Starting on September 22, a large-scale military operation for eliminating the militants was underway in the Rasht region. However, news from the field has not been positive – every other day new casualties from among national army soldiers are reported. Meanwhile, the Tajik Ministry of Defense criticized some independent media sources, accusing them of being “provocative” and providing subjective coverage of the events in Rasht. It should be noted that all means of communication with the Rasht region are cut off since the military operation started, and no journalists are allowed into the region.
Some sources suggest that from the beginning of the military operation in Rasht, fifteen militants had been killed (as of October 5). Furthermore, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that 50-60 militants have been isolated and that the army currently seeks to eliminate them.
Nonetheless, the army has suffered significant losses as well. For instance, on October 4 it was reported that several members of a Khatlon special police squad (OMON) were killed, among them the squad commander and police colonel Zoirsho Kalandarov and senior lieutenant Yatim Salimov. The National Guard of Tajikistan reported that on October 6, a truck carrying soldiers hit a landmine. As a result, six soldiers died and the number of wounded is still under investigation. On the same day, a helicopter of the National Guard crashed in Rasht. Some sources report twenty eight military personnel dead, among them soldiers of the elite state security division “Alpha” and soldiers of the National Guard. The press service of the National Guard stated that the helicopter crash was due to “technical problems”. However, some news information sources claim that the crash took place four days earlier than officially stated due to the helicopter taking fire from the ground.
Simultaneously, a confrontation has erupted between Tajik media and the Ministry of Defense. On October 4, the Tajik Minister of Defense, Sherali Khayrulloev, harshly criticized some of the local independent media sources, stating that their coverage of the attack on the convoy was “provocative” and “not corresponding to reality”, and that media intentionally underlined mistakes and shortfalls of the national army. Thus, he claimed that by doing so these media sources “support” the terrorist activities of the militants.
In response to the statement of the Minister, media representatives requested official apologies from the Ministry for libel, and some even intended to file a case in court. The Minister, however, showed no intention of apologizing for his words and said that “journalists are the ones who should be apologizing, if they have at least a bit of conscience”.
Furthermore, some internet sources are blocked in Tajikistan. For instance, Zafar Abdullaev, director of the local news agency “Avesta”, stated that from September 29, a number of internet service providers in Tajikistan blocked access to the web sites of www.tojnews.tj and www.tjknews.com. By September 30, access to the web site of www.avesta.tj was also blocked, and www.centrasia.ru had limited accessibility. Abdullaev assumes that this inititiave came from higher authorities, and that there could be different reasons for this, “from discontent with the information policy of these web sites to temporary measures on controlling the information space in light of the military operation in the east of the country”. In addition, some publishers refused to print the outlets of certain independent agencies, providing no convincing reasons.
The security situation in the east of Tajikistan is far from stable. The complete isolation of the region where the military operation is taking place, and a resulting information vacuum, aggravate the situation even further. Thus, on the one hand there is no concrete information about the actual success and losses of the government military forces in the operation, and therefore it is difficult to make any estimations about the total number of casualties on both sides. At the same time, media that tries to provide information on the situation in Rasht gets accused of providing “one-sided” and “provocative” information by the Tajik security authorities. This, in turn, adds even more confusion and less awareness of the situation among the public.