In the dead of night, at 2.00 AM on 12 May, gunmen attacked the Lyakkon border post in the Isfara region in northern Tajikistan, killing three border guards. The attackers seized 19 automatic rifles, one heavy-caliber machine gun and cartridges there, before escaping to Kyrgyzstan’s Batken province across the border. The men changed the Opel they were driving in Kyrgyzstan for a passing Mercedes Benz – killing its unlucky driver. Passing Batken on their way to the second largest city of Kyrgyzstan, Osh, the gunmen attacked a Kyrgyz border post at about 5.00 AM, when Kyrgyz guards started to check their car. They killed a further two border guards and wounded one custom official as well as a border guard in the ensuing shoot-out. The men then tried to escape in their car but because it was damaged in the fight, they had to leave it in a near-by village, after which they escaped to the mountains, taking the weapons with them. A rumor that the group also attacked an Uzbek border post has been denied by Uzbek officials.

In one of the two cars that the gunmen had left behind on their raiding trip, 17 automatic rifles and the machine gun were found. In the other, border guards found a mask and traces of blood. The gunmen would have been at least seven persons strong; up to four may have been killed during the attack in Kyrgyzstan and two others were later arrested, but reports differs on this matter. Officials say the members of the group comprised citizens of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Both Tajik and Kyrgyz authorities claim the gunmen were members of the IMU, the radical Islamic movement that is thought to have been largely destroyed in Afghanistan at the end of 2001 during the U.S.-led assault on Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The group’s original aim was to bring down the regime of Uzbek president Islam Karimov – but apart from Uzbeks, attracted also Kyrgyz and Tajiks under its banner. The group made armed incursions into southern Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 1999-2000, after which it found shelter in Afghanistan. The movement was weakened greatly during the campaign against the Taliban in 2001. But according to the Tajik authorities, it has become increasingly active after the mass killings in the Uzbek city of Andijan in May 2005, which the Uzbek authorities blame on an uprising by Islamic radicals. The official version now is that the group which attacked the border posts is connected to the IMU and Hizb-ut-Tahrir, another radical but to self-avowedly peaceful Islamic organization.

True or not, there seems to be a link between last week’s events and an earlier incident in northern Tajikistan: one of the alleged gunmen was 25-year-old Dilshod Rakhimov, who was wanted since January this year when he attacked the Ghayroghum prison, freeing his brother who was held there on accusations of having connections with the IMU and illegal possession of arms. Then, Dilshod with two or three others would have freed his brother, killing the prison director. Notwithstanding joint Tajik-Kyrgyz efforts, the perpetrators of this deed have not been found. But according to different sources in northern Tajikistan, Dilshod Rakhimov was either arrested or killed during the attack on the Kyrgyz border post. According to one source, Rakhimov used to serve with the border guards at Lyakkon and his familiarity with the border post would have made it easy for him to attack it when nobody expected it.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan cooperated closely to find and eliminate the armed group. The border region is now teeming with police and border forces. Border control has increased in the area where earlier, several border crossings between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were completely unguarded.

The aim of the attack is still not clear. One theory has it that the attack is not connected to radical Islam but to drug smuggling. The mountains around the Ferghana Valley, where Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan meet, are one of the main routes for drugs smugglers, smuggling narcotics from Afghanistan through the Ferghana Valley further to Kazakhstan and Russia.

In both cases, the motive to attack the border posts remains murky. “Incidents in the Tajik-Kyrgyz border area are increasing,” says an analyst in Tajikistan, “but if they were radical Islamists, what was their political motive?” As for the drugs smuggling theory: “Bribing officials would have been easier for a small band than fighting your way through.”