Tajik Secret Police Official Slain; New Violence Feared

Fresh fears of violence in Tajikistan arose Thursday, hours after a new parliamentary leader was elected and a deputy secret police chief was killed in an ambush on the streets of Dushanbe, the capital of the war-torn Central Asian state.

The late-night assassination of Jurabek Aminov, a senior politician who had tried to broker a peace between Islamic fundamentalists and pro-Communist forces embroiled in a civil war, seemed certain to spark new bloodshed.

The powerful Tajik security police, successor in Tajikistan to the Soviet Union’s KGB, almost immediately issued a statement vowing to avenge Aminov’s death by finding the gunmen and bringing them to trial, Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported. But the officers pledged not to get involved in “political fighting” and promised to “enforce law and ensure people’s safety and the integrity of sovereign Tajikistan despite threats and blackmailing.”

Still, some politicians warily predicted an upsurge in terrorism.

Aminov, a Muslim who supported a centrist coalition government, was respected throughout Tajikistan. Islamic militants might seize his death as an excuse to embark on “vengeance attacks” against supporters of Tajikistan’s ousted Communist president, Rakhman Nabiyev.

The ambush--carried out late Wednesday night by gunmen armed with a rocket-propelled grenade--came shortly after the Tajik Parliament elected a new chairman in an attempt to rebuild the country’s leadership and restart peace negotiations.

Wednesday’s vote placed Imomali Rakhmonov, a leader of the violence-racked Kulyab region, at the head of Tajikistan’s government. He replaces Akbarsho Iskandarov, who resigned from the post saying he was “unhappy that the fratricidal war is continuing and my efforts have failed to produce the desired effect,” Itar-Tass reported.

Iskandarov’s Cabinet also resigned this week, leaving the battle-scarred country with no real leadership.

Civil war and clan conflict in Tajikistan, a nation of 5.3 million wedged between China and Afghanistan, have caused thousands of deaths and displaced an estimated 250,000 people.