Afghanistan says working with Tajikistan to investigate deadly border clash

KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities said Saturday they were working with neighbouring Tajikistan to investigate a border clash earlier this week that killed five people, including two Tajik guards.

Tajikistan announced on Thursday that three members of a “terrorist” group had crossed into the Central Asian country “illegally” at Khatlon province, which borders Afghanistan.

Tajik security forces killed the trio, but two border guards also died in the clash, the Tajik national security committee said.

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said on Saturday that “we have started serious investigations into” the recent “incidents” on Tajik soil.

“I spoke to the foreign minister of Tajikistan and we are working together to prevent such incidents,” he told an event in Kabul.

“We are worried that some malicious circles want to destroy the relations between two neighbouring countries,” the minister added, without elaborating.

Tajikistan shares a mountainous border of about 1,350 kilometres (839 miles) with Afghanistan and has had tense relations with Kabul’s Taliban authorities, who returned to power in 2021. Unlike other Central Asian leaders, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, who has been in power since 1992, has criticised the Taliban and urged them to respect the rights of ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan.

At least five Chinese nationals were killed and several wounded in two separate attacks along the border with Afghanistan in late November and early December, according to Tajik authorities. According to a UN report in December, the jihadist group Jamaat Ansarullah “has fighters spread across different regions of Afghanistan” with a primary goal “to destabilize the situation in Tajikistan.”