Hostage Drama, Weapons Seizure Fuel New Fighting in Tajikistan

Fighting in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan intensified Sunday after one of the warring sides seized four tanks and two armored vehicles from a Russian regiment stationed in the southern part of the republic and took three Russian servicemen as hostages, news services reported.

The armed men, who also seized 12 antiaircraft missiles, demanded that the regiment destroy all of its remaining tanks, threatening to kill the hostages otherwise, the Russian Interfax news service said.

But the hostages were released unharmed later in the day, according to the duty officer at headquarters of the Russian 201st Motorized Infantry Division based in Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital. The officer declined to comment further.

The hostages and tanks were taken after 350 fighters from the southern region of Kulyab surrounded the Russian regiment, based in the Kurgan Tyube area not far from the Afghanistan border, according to Russia’s Itar-Tass news service. The Kulyab fighters, loyal to ousted Tajik President Rakhman Nabiyev, are engaged in a bloody inter-clan conflict with his opponents from Kurgan Tyube.

Gen. Mukhritdin Ashurov, commander of the 201st Division, told Itar-Tass that he plans to send reinforcements to the regiment in Kurgan Tyube as soon as a way is found to cross the Vakhsh River. A bridge over the river was blown up.

The captured weapons gave new ferocity to the fighting. “A fierce battle is under way between opposing armed groups in the Kurgan Tyube region,” Interfax said.

The fighting, which has gone on for months, has made life in the region precarious. Hundreds of people, many of them peaceful residents, have been killed and thousands have been forced to abandon their homes. Reports of atrocities are numerous.

“It is a war where cruelty breeds cruelty,” the weekly Moscow News newspaper said in its latest edition. “An orgy of terror is only possible because it’s easy to procure arms freely and in great quantities.”

Much of the weaponry is smuggled into Tajikistan from neighboring Afghanistan.