Tajik suicide bombers strike Khudzhand police station

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KHUDZHAND, Tajikistan -- Suicide bombing appears to have finally come to Tajikistan.

At 7.45am September 3, an explosion rocked Khudzhand. Two suicide bombers rammed an explosive-laden car into the Interior Ministry's oblast headquarters for fighting organised crime, authorities said. The explosion killed police officer Takhir Normatov and injured 25 policemen, the Interior Ministry press office said.

"Before the workday had started, a GAZ-24 car unexpectedly entered the organised-crime department's compound ... and drove into the building, after which an explosion occurred," senior Interior Ministry inspector Makhammadzhon Narziyev said at a Dushanbe news conference.

Narziyev said two men were involved. "These were men involved in the murder of organised-crime leader Khomid Karimov, who was gunned down August 30 by unknown individuals," Narziyev claimed. "They wanted to cover their tracks because several of their associates had been detained."

The bombers might have had a militant connection. "Law enforcement organs suspect that members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who have committed a number of crimes in Sughd Oblast over the last three to four years organised this terrorist act," he said.

The number of dead could grow, witnesses said. Khudzhand resident Nadzhot, who did not give his last name, said he saw medics removing practically lifeless bodies from the scene.

Hospital personnel refused to comment. However, it is known that several of the survivors had serious injuries.

Religious-extremist organisations may be involved in this incident, said Rano Bobodzhonova, head of the Sughd Oblast government's information and analysis centre.

"Suicide bombers have struck Tajikistan for the first time," she said. "Someone will go to his death only if he is a fanatic in the grip of some ideology.

The so-called shakhidi ('martyrs') who have been promised bliss in paradise are capable of self-destruction. ... Extremists in the north might have decided to commit a series of terrorist acts to destabilise Tajikistan."

Authorities are removing rubble from the partly destroyed oblast police headquarters as the investigation continues. President Emomali Rakhmon ordered Security Council Secretary Amirkul Azimov to head the inquiry, Avesta.tj reported September 3.

At the same time, law enforcement is investigating attacks overnight on Defence Ministry outposts and blaming them on August 23 prison escapees convicted of extremism. Two of three Defence Ministry outposts in the Romit District, 45km from Dushanbe, came under sustained gunfire the night of September 2-3.

The gunfire lasted from midnight to 4am, said an Interior Ministry source who requested anonymity because he lacked authorisation to talk to media.

The two outposts have 10 to 15 troops total and are in the towns of Bungakiyen and Gulbulok. "We have information that yesterday, some escapees who had taken cover in the Chukaisha District ... were able during the fighting to break out of the (government forces') cordon and hide in the Romit Valley," the source added.

"They teamed up with some fellow escapees and fled to Gornaia Matcha. There are ten of them in all, according to preliminary information."

Precise casualty figures are unavailable at this time, he said, since authorities jammed mobile phone communications in the affected districts to prevent the militants from communicating with each other. Authorities have sent reinforcements to the area.