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Russian drug control suggests Tajikistan’s rebel general was involved in drug trafficking

Russian border-guards with confiscated heroin at the Tajik-Afghan border (archive) ITAR-TASS/Sergei Zhukov
Russian border-guards with confiscated heroin at the Tajik-Afghan border (archive)
© ITAR-TASS/Sergei Zhukov

KAZAN, September 24. /TASS/. The chief of Russia's drug control service has accused Tajikistan’s rebel general Abdukhalim Nazarzoda, reportedly eliminated alongside a group of his associates in a recent security sweep in the mountains, of having been involved in drugs smuggling.

"The continuing military supplies to Afghanistan add to the political turbulence in the whole region of Central Asia, including areas near our border. The Nazarzoda affair is not accidental: narcotic drugs were surely involved," the head of FSKN, Viktor Ivanov, said on Thursday.

"Heroin transit through Tajikistan exceeds by far the country’s budget. It’s about 20 billion roubles ($300 million) worth," Ivanov said, adding that a tremendous number of crime rings and gangs had concentrated around this money.

Tajik media on September 11 said Abdukhalim Nazarzoda and his group were liquidated. Two days later reports arrived he was alive and sealed off in the Ramit Gorge.

On September 4, Tajikistan’s former deputy defense minister, Major-General Abdukhalim Nazarzoda and a group of followers attacked a district police office and one of the Defense Ministry’s departments. A short while later he took a hiding in the Ramit Gorge in the mountains 40 kilometers east of the republic’s capital Dushanbe.