The Taliban* and the terrorist organization "Jamaati Ansarulla"* participated in the clashes on May 18 in the Rushan district of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan.
QUNDUZ, May 24 - Sangar, Jamshid Badakhshi. The Tajik Interior Ministry statement refers to “criminal groups in the Rushan district of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region under the leadership of extremist-terrorist international organizations,” but details of these “international organizations” are missing.
In the photo: Qari Fasihuddin
At least four different sources in Afghan Badakhshan and people close to the Taliban confirmed to the Sangar website that Jamaat Ansarullah, in agreement with senior Taliban leaders, supplied various weapons to opposition groups in the Rushan region of Tajik Badakhshan.
A person close to the Chief of Staff of the Taliban Ministry of Defense, Qari Fasihuddin, said that on May 3, 2022, the commander of the Taliban Air Force, Mavlavi Amanuddin, in agreement with Mullah Salahuddin "Salar", deputy intelligence directorate of the Taliban Ministry of Defense, sent various types of ammunition - 3 grenade launchers, 6 PK submachine guns, 13 M4 assault rifles, 22 hand grenades, which were later handed over to Shamsullah Khalid, a resident of the Jurm district, the commander of a Taliban battalion. According to him, these weapons were sent from the Baharak district to the Shugnan district on the border with Tajikistan and handed over to Muhammad Sharifov, better known as Mehdi Arsalan, a foreign citizen and one of the commanders of the Jamaat Ansarullah.
“Seven days before the clashes in Tajikistan, Mehdi Arsalan met with Army Chief of Staff Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat and Taliban Air Force Commander Mavlawi Amanuddin at Qari Fasihuddin's private home in the Kartae Parwan district of Kabul. Mehdi Arsalan asked them to help the armed forces in conducting a joint operation on the territory of Tajikistan. The request was accepted by Fasihuddin and Amanuddin,” the source said.
According to him, two days after the meeting, a group of 18 people loyal to Mawlavi Amanuddin left the Varduj district for the Shugnan district of the province and spent the night in the Shiduj village of this district.
In the photo: Mawlavi Amanuddin
“On the night of May 13-14, they entered the territory of Tajikistan from the Afghan Rushan of the Shugnan district, taking advantage of the darkness of the night, and after carrying out the operation, which consisted in handing over weapons to their accomplices, they spent several hours on the other side of the Panj River and returned to Afghanistan closer to dawn and are still in the area,” the source said.
Another source confirming the incident reports that the Afghan Taliban of Badakhshan held a meeting in the Baharak district to prepare for the operation, and some of them were sent to Tajikistan along with the Ansarullah group to conduct it.
“A certain person under the nickname of Sahibnazar from the Tajik Rushan was in constant contact with the Afghan Taliban and was a guide for the terrorists,” the source said.
Another interlocutor of Sangar said that most of the foreign terrorists are located at military bases in the Baharak and Ishkashim districts, and under the coordination of the chief of staff of the division of Taliban's Ministry of Defense in Badakhshan, Mawlavi Mahbubulla Hamid, known as Mawlavi Mahbub, their task is to conduct an operation in the Ishkashim and Shugnan districts of the Tajik Badakhshan.
(Sangar reported in March that Mawlawi Mahbub, a Taliban commander in the Khostak Valley in Jurm Agency, is patronizing foreign terrorists.)
"Third Omar" - a new division of the Taliban in Badakhshan
In the photo: Mawlavi Mahbub
Another person coordinating ties between the Taliban and Jamaat Ansarullah is Qari Mohebullah, known as Qari Moheb Darwazi, chief assistant and chief financial officer of Qari Fasihuddin, a native of Jamarch village, Nusay district, Darwaz region of Afghanistan.
“Qari Moheb is the nephew of Gul Agha, a Taliban commander in Shugnan. On the orders of Fasihuddin, he issued Afghan passports to foreign terrorists and placed them in the districts of Jurm and Baharak. About 80 families of terrorists from Tajikistan live in the Faraj area of the Baharak district. Two months ago, Mehdi Arsalan moved his family from the village of Khogaz, Nusay district, to Baharak,” the source said.
He added that Fasihuddin appointed Mahdi Arsalan, along with two other terrorists from Tajikistan, to the Badakhshan border brigade and created two bases for them in the districts of Raghs and Ishkashim.
“Fasihuddin divided the Tajik terrorists into two parts. One part is always with him, and his main bodyguards are from Tajikistan. The other part is stationed at these bases, where they are trained by Taliban and al-Qaeda instructors. They smuggle weapons, counterfeit dollars and other smuggled goods through the Wakhan and Ishkashim. They have a lot of weapons in their arsenal from wars with the republic and they are looking for safe ways to Tajikistan,” the source said.
These reports come after the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, during clashes in Tajik Rushan, on May 18 officially announced the conduct of an “anti-terrorist operation”, the suppression of “criminal groups in the Rushan district of Badakhshan province, which was led by international extremist-terrorist organizations” and the acquisition of a significant amount of weapons. Dozens were reported killed and wounded in clashes on both sides.
Tajik officials have not officially commented on “international extremist-terrorist organizations”, but a number of materials posted on social networks by people close to the authorities pointed to the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, which has been declared a terrorist party in Tajikistan. These materials directly mention Jamaat Ansarullah as the military wing of this party.
According to these materials, Muhiddin Kabiri, the leader of the aforementioned party, contacted the Ansarullah leaders via the Internet and expressed his support to them. Earlier, in an interview with Radio Ozodi, he spoke about the armed struggle against the Tajik government. This was at a time when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistan's most extremist and nationalist politicians, who often spoke out in support of the Taliban, was threatening Tajikistan with military action.
Sangar has reliable reports about how all these events are connected to each other and which foreign intelligence agencies are interested in escalating the situation on the borders of Tajikistan, as well as some other shocking details, which the site refrains from publishing.
* The organization is under UN sanctions or banned due to terrorist activities.
