Smuggler gunned down on Tajik-Afghan border
DUSHANBE. Feb 13 (Interfax) - Tajik National Security Committee officers and border guards have shot dead a border trespasser, the committee's public relations center reported on Wednesday.
"Three Afghan smugglers engaged in a shootout with officers of the National Security Committee's Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous district's department and border guards while crossing the Tajik-Afghan border in the sector controlled by the Ishkashim border unit, 630 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe," the report said.
One of the trespassers was killed and the two others returned to Afghanistan.
"A loaded Kalashnikov submachine gun and an inflatable rubber ring used by the trespassers to cross the River Pyanj were found near the dead body," the report said.
This was the fourth armed clash of Tajik National Security Committee officers with Afghan drug smugglers on the 1,344-kilometer Tajik-Afghan border within the past ten days. In all, five trespassers were killed. A Tajik border guard died and two were injured. More than 150 kilograms of drugs were seized.
Tajik police seized 5,978 tons of drugs last year or 41.1% more than the year before.
A transit route of Afghan drugs smuggled to Russia and farther on to Eastern and Western Europe goes through Tajikistan.
