Tajik Border Troops: 7,000 Taliban concentrated bordering with the Republic

The Taliban Movement has deployed about 7,000 of its fighters along the Afghan-Tajik border, deployed in 29 training bases, the commander of the border troops of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) of Tajikistan Rajabali Rahmonali noted at the ceremony dedicated to the 15th anniversary of implementation of the Border Management Program in Central Asia (BOMCA).

According to Rahmonali, 6,825 militants of the Taliban movement were transferred from the south to the north of Afghanistan and are now based in the provinces of Balkh, Kunduz, Takhor and Badakhshan. Many of these militants are natives of the Central Asia countries, Rajabali Rahmonali stressed.

The military commander stated that the Afghan-Tajik border has become a headache only for Tajikistan. He thanked foreign states and international organizations for their help in strengthening the southern borders of the country and said that Tajikistan still needs this assistance. According to Rajabali Rahmonali, for 15 years, within the VOMSA program framework, Tajikistan has been assisted in strengthening the border with Afghanistan by 43 million Euros.

It should be noted that Tajikistan has the longest - 1,400 kilometers - border with Afghanistan. As EADaily reported, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, at a session of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Minsk on November 30, 2017, called his partners to help strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border, which is in fact the southern boundary of the CSTO member state.

On April 5, the first deputy director of Russia’s federal security service FSB, Sergei Smirnov, who was leading Russia’s delegation at a meeting of the Council of the SCO Anti-Terrorist Structure, said that about 8,000 militants from Syria were transferred to the north of Afghanistan.