Tajikistan: Several Killed In ISIS Attack

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon was on a visit to Switzerland when the attack happened. AFP
Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon was on a visit to Switzerland when the attack happened. AFP
TT
20

Tajikistan: Several Killed In ISIS Attack

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon was on a visit to Switzerland when the attack happened. AFP
Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon was on a visit to Switzerland when the attack happened. AFP

Seventeen people were killed in Tajikistan on Wednesday in an attack on a border post that officials blamed on ISIS group militants who had crossed over from Afghanistan.

Tajik security forces killed 15 when an armed and masked gang attacked the checkpoint on the border with Uzbekistan.

A soldier and a policeman also died in the fighting, officials said, AFP reported.

The clashes near the Tajik capital Dushanbe broke out as the country prepared to celebrate Constitution Day on Wednesday and the country's long-serving President Emomali Rakhmon was on a visit to Switzerland.

Rakhmon is also expected to visit Paris later this week to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron as part of a rare European visit.

After questioning several detained militants, the Tajik border guard service said the men were members of the ISIS group who had crossed the border from Afghanistan on Sunday.

"All (of them) are members of the so-called terrorist group 'ISIS'", the border guard service said in a statement.

The interior ministry released pictures of several bodies in black clothes lying next to burnt-out vehicles at the scene of the clash.

The militants crossed the border in the south of Tajikistan and apparently trekked to the site of the attack on the border with Uzbekistan, which is around 200 kilometres away.

The armed gang of around 20 masked people attacked the Ishkobod border post located some 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Tajikistan capital after 3 am local time Wednesday, the interior ministry said.

"As a result of an operation conducted by law enforcement forces, 15 members of an armed criminal group were neutralized and four more attackers detained," stated.

The country's border guards said separately that five attackers had been detained.

According to AFP, tens of thousands of people were killed in Tajikistan during a five-year civil war in the 1990s.



Australia Says Will Not Commit Troops in Advance to Any Conflict

Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
TT
20

Australia Says Will Not Commit Troops in Advance to Any Conflict

Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Residential properties are seen near the Sydney Harbour Bridge in, Sydney, Australia, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

Australia will not commit troops in advance to any conflict, Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy said on Sunday, responding to a report that the Pentagon has pressed its ally to clarify what role it would play if the US and China went to war over Taiwan.

Australia prioritizes its sovereignty and "we don't discuss hypotheticals", Conroy said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"The decision to commit Australian troops to a conflict will be made by the government of the day, not in advance but by the government of the day," he said.

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that Elbridge Colby, the US under-secretary of defense for policy, has been pressing Australian and Japanese officials on what they would do in a Taiwan conflict, although the US does not offer a blank cheque guarantee to defend Taiwan.

Colby posted on X that the Department of Defense is implementing President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda of restoring deterrence, which includes "urging allies to step up their defense spending and other efforts related to our collective defense".

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te rejects China's sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking in Shanghai at the start of a six-day visit to China that is likely to focus on security and trade, said Canberra did not want any change to the status quo on Taiwan.

Conroy said Australia was concerned about China's military buildup of nuclear and conventional forces, and wants a balanced Indo-Pacific region where no country dominates. He said China was seeking a military base in the Pacific, which was not in Australia's interest, Reuters reported.

'GOAL IS NO WAR'

Talisman Sabre, Australia's largest war-fighting exercise with the United States, opened on Sunday on Sydney Harbour and will involve 40,000 troops from 19 countries, including Japan, South Korea, India, Britain, France and Canada.

Conroy said China's navy might be watching the exercise to collect information, as it had done in the past.

The war games will span thousands of kilometers from Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island to the Coral Sea on Australia's east coast, in a rehearsal of joint war fighting, said Vice Admiral Justin Jones, chief of joint operations for the Australian Defense Force.

The air, sea, land and space exercises over two weeks will "test our ability to move our forces into the north of Australia and operate from Australia", Jones told reporters.

"I will leave it to China to interpret what 19 friends, allies and partners wanting to operate together in the region means to them. But for me... it is nations that are in search of a common aspiration for peace, stability, a free and open Indo-Pacific," he said.

US Army Lieutenant General Joel Vowell, deputy commanding general for the Pacific, said Talisman Sabre would improve the readiness of militaries to respond together and was "a deterrent mechanism because our ultimate goal is no war".

"If we could do all this alone and we could go fast, but because we want to go far, we have to do it together and that is important because of the instability that is resident in the region," Vowell said.

The United States is Australia's major security ally. Although Australia does not permit foreign bases, the US military is expanding its rotational presence and fuel stores on Australian bases, which from 2027 will have US Virginia submarines at port in Western Australia.