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Tajikistan’s authorities deliver ultimatum to terrorists sheltering in mountain gorge

DUSHANBE - RAMIT, September 5. /TASS/. Tajikistan’s authorities have delivered an ultimatum to lay arms to terrorist sheltering in the Ramit mountain gorge some 40 kilometres east of the capital city of Dushanbe, sources at law enforcement authorities told TASS on Saturday.

The law enforcement sources are on alert by the mountain gorge, where shelters a terrorist group of Adukhalim Nazarzoda, who was fired from the post of deputy defence minister earlier on Friday. The police at checkpoints inspect vehicle and individuals going towards Ramit. A military said about an exchange of fire late on Friday. The situation is quiet now.

On Friday, Tajikistan’s interior ministry has placed responsibility for the armed attack and slaying of eight policemen and for the organisation of a terrorist group on Adukhalim Nazarzoda, who was fired from the post of deputy defence minister earlier in the day, a ministry spokesman told TASS on Friday.

According to the spokesman, over the year of the civil war in Tajikistan in 1992-1995, Nazarzoda, dubbed Khalim, was a field commander of the Tajik armed opposition. After a peace deal was signed in June 1997, Nazarzoda was commissioned to the Tajik army under the programme of reintegration of former opposition gunmen. In 2014, he was promoted to the rank of Major General and appointed deputy defence minister.

"However, over all these years, the former field commander has been cherishing secret plans and waiting for an opportunity to stage anti-government actions aiming to destabilise the situation in the country," the spokesman said.

In a special operation on Friday, police found a lot of arms and munitions at Nazarzoda’s place of residence and at a bakery in the Vakhdatsky district owned by Nazarzoda. The interior ministry says Nazarzoda and several dozens of other gunmen are hiding in the Ramit mountain gorge some 40 kilometres east of the capital city of Dushanbe, where armed opposition used to have a base in the year of the civil confrontation.

"Abdukhalim Nazarzoda is accused of terrorist activities and office abuse and will be held answerable with the utmost rigour of the law," Tajikistan’s Interior Minister Ramazan Rakhimzoda told TASS.

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