The Tajik authorities accused the supporters of the banned Islamic Revival Party (IRP) of attacking the foreign cyclists traveling around the country in the Danghara district. The leader of the IRP Muhiddin Kabiri rejects these accusations, pointing out that those detained in connection to the murder are not members of the party. At the same time, the day before the Islamic State group (ISIS), banned in Russia and other countries, claimed the responsibility for the attack.
The information officer at US Embassy in Dushanbe, Jeff Ridenour, said that the attack on tourists in Danghara was deliberate. This opinion is also shared by the head of the EU delegation in Tajikistan, Ambassador Hidayet Bishchevich. Experts believe that the attack can definitely be characterized as a terrorist act.
The incident occurred on the Dushanbe-Kulob road on July 29. The car rammed a group of seven cyclists. The video released on the Internet shows the car that hit the tourists turned around and hit them again. Then the attackers got out of the car and assaulted the cyclists with knives and axes. Two US citizens died as the result of injuries sustained - Jay Austin and Lauren Munoz, Rene Wokke from the Netherlands and Markus Hummel from Switzerland, two other foreign citizens - Kim Postma and Marie-Claire Diemand - were injured and were taken to hospital. Frenchman Guillaume Jean Cazabat was not injured.
An expert on Tajikistan, Andrei Zakhvatov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that since the car attack on the tourists was documented by a video cameras, the Danghara tragedy can be definitely described as a deliberate terrorist act. Same as the July 2016 attack in Nice, which killed 86 and injured 308 people. The expert stressed that the purpose of any terrorist act is intimidating people. "But in different cases, intimidation has different meanings - for example, forcing the government to change the state policy. Any professional psychologist will confirm that when planning their crimes, terrorists do not consider them as crimes and act, according to their beliefs, since those who decides to kill strangers see them as enemies. And in the age of the Internet and communication technologies no special effort is required from customers and organizers to create enemies for illiterate people," Andrei Zakhvatov noted.
According to him, special services of any country possess clearly formalized technologies for countering terrorism, but no special services, including in Tajikistan, can guarantee the absolute protection of citizens. "I do not think that the Tajik State Committee for National Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have relaxed. I do not consider the first terrorist attack against foreign tourists in the history of sovereign Tajikistan to be a sign of the insufficient professionalism of the Tajik security forces. I believe that the terrorist group's targets and motives in Danghara, provisionally outlined by the Tajik special services, will be determined with the utmost certainty. However, the special services always keep their cards close and only things approved by the government will be made public.
Speaking at the meeting of the Government of Tajikistan held the day before, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon instructed to strengthen security measures in the country, especially at strategic facilities and roads leading to the capital. The head of state ordered to thoroughly investigate the attack on tourists and punish the perpetrators.
Security measures have been strengthened in the Russian embassy. Travel restrictions were imposed on diplomats in Tajikistan, the embassy's advisor Shamil Shamsutdinov told journalists.
On the eve, ISIS (banned in Russia) claimed the responsibility for the attack, according to the website of the Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activity around the world. ?In the statement, the ISIS group claimed a "detachment from the soldiers of the Caliphate" had carried out the attack against "citizens of Crusader coalition countries," that is, the countries fighting against ISIS.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan released the final details of the special operation to neutralize the criminal group that organized and carried out the attack. According to thespecial services, a group of nine people attacked the tourists. During the special operation, four of them were killed, others were detained. With the help of local residents, the special services found the Daewoo Leganza car, which was used during the attack, in the village of Torbulok, Dangara district, where the suspected attacker Hussein Abdusamadov was detained. "Another perpetrator of a crime, Yusupov Asliddin, who resisted arrest and injured with an axe the first deputy of the Department for Combating Organized Crime at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan, Lieutenant Colonel Jumakhon Nazarzoda, was liquidated. Jumakhon Nazarzoda, who was seriously injured, was hospitalized," the Interior Ministry said.
The operatives found in the car a knife and an ax with traces of blood, a telephone, two saddlebags, sports shoes, two passports for Asomiddin Majidov and Zafar Safarov, residents of the Pyanj district. "As a result of operational search activities in connection with the armed resistance in the village of Osmondar of Danghara district, members of the criminal group - Asomiddin Majidov, Zafar Safarov and Jafariddin Yusufov, were killed," the report said.
Nevertheless, the Tajik authorities are working out the version of the IRP involvement in the incident. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, during the interrogation Hussein Abdusamadov admitted that he is the leader of the group. He said that in 2014-2015 he "underwent ideological and military training in Kum and Mazandaran, where he met the IRP active member Nosirhudzha Ubaydov dubbed Kori-Nosir and joined the IRP, which was the customer of the crime. Ubaydov had been on the international wanted list since 2015. Mazandaran is not a city in Iran, it is a province in the north of the country. Abdusamadov's mistake, according to experts, indicates that it's unlikely that he has ever been in Iran. But the law enforcement bodies did not pay attention to this mistake. After committing the crime, Abdusamadov and his gang members intended to hide in the territory of Afghanistan and join the terrorists.
The IRP leader Muhiddin Kabiri rejects the accusations against the party. He told Vestnik Kavkaza that the the accusations of the IRP involvement in the incident is completely contrary to political culture, moral and logic. "ISIS declares that it claimed responsibility for the attack, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs ignores it and accuses the IRP. We have evidence that none of the attackers has nothing to do with the IRP. In fact, one of the detainees is the son of the director of the Narek school. His parents are members of the People's Democratic Party headed by President Rahmon. These kids grew up and studied in schools under the current government. This is the result of the work carried out by the authorities throughout the years of the country's independence," the politician said. Kabiri recalled that the Tajik authorities repeatedly accused the IRP of committing crimes and even a coup d'état, while Iran - in financing terrorism. "And this time the Tajik government "kicked" Iran, which is one of the leading actors in the fight against ISIS. Our party also stands against ISIS, which is fighting against Iran and the IRP. Everyone knows it," the politician noted.
Meanwhile, the killing of tourists pushed aside the discussion on the travel ban for 4-year-old Ibrohim Hamza Tillozoda, the grandson of Kabiri, who has life-threatening stage-3 testicular cancer. He urgently needs qualified medical treatment, but doctors at home are not able to treat him. However, the Tajik authorities are preventing the mother and her child from leaving the country due to the fact that his father Ruhullo Tillozoda and grandfather Mukhiddin Kabiri left Tajikistan in 2015 to avoid political persecution by the Tajik authorities. The party was accused of terrorism, but it was not recognized by Interpol and international institutions. Muhiddin Kabiri was removed from the Interpol 'Red Notice.'
The politician believes that if the Tajik authorities do not issue documents for the child and his mother and they will not be get out of the country, it means that the authorities accused the party of involvement in the crime on purpose. It is possible that the statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is aimed at pushing the child issue to the background and forgetting about it.
In late 2015, Tajik authorities confiscated the travel documents of Hamza’s mother and other family members, preventing them from traveling outside the country. Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said that an oncological clinic in Turkey is prepared to provide the treatment. More than 130 thousand people from all over the world signed a petition demanding to allow the mother and child to leave the country. "It's morally reprehensible that the Tajik authorities seem to keep a seriously ill child hostage to put pressure on his father and grandfather," said Steve Sverdlow, a Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "This case should not be the subject of politics, it is about the life of the child."
"It is morally reprehensible that Tajik authorities appear to be holding a critically ill child hostage to exert pressure on his father and grandfather," Human Rights Watch's Central Asia researcher, Steve Swerdlow, said. "This case should not be about politics but about a child’s life."
