Border security

Barely guarded Afghan border puts ex-Soviet Tajikistan in peril

The three Tajik construction workers were quietly mending a road near the Panj River last month when they stumbled on a group of men with assault rifles who had crossed over from Afghanistan in broad daylight.

The gunmen shot and wounded one worker and took the two others back across the river into Afghanistan. A few days later, Tajik border guard commanders negotiated the release of the kidnapped pair through elders of nearby Afghan villages, the border guards say.

It's the sort of incident that has become increasingly frequent near towns like Shuro-obod on the Tajik-Afghan border, where what was once one of the heavily guarded frontiers of the Cold War has all but melted away.

Tajikistan, the poorest country in the former Soviet Union, is now barely defended from armed smugglers, kidnappers and what its rulers say is a looming threat from Islamist insurgents looking for a new front in their global holy war.

"Terrorist organizations are expanding their activity and the situation is further complicated by their resurgence in neighboring Afghanistan," President Imomali Rakhmon said in his annual address this year.