On July 2, 2009, Tajik border guards discovered a large Afghan drug camp in an isolated area called Shpilob in Shurobod District on Tajikistan’s southern border with Afghanistan. According to the Tajik state news agency Khovar, the border troops attacked the camp, killing two and forcing about 200 suspected drug smugglers to retreat across the Panj River to neighboring Afghanistan. In numerous caves on a rough mountainside, Tajik border guards found roughly 350 kg of various drugs, 11 firearms and 6,500 cartridges. In addition, 100 sets of civilian clothing, over 200 sets of kitchen appliances, and numerous tents and blankets were found in the camp. About 11,000 bushes of Indian hemp grew around the camp. The Tajik news agency Asia Plus, citing an unnamed source in the Chief Directorate for Border Troops under Tajikistan’s State Committee on National Security on 4 July, said the camp was used to support large-scale trafficking of Afghan narcotics through Tajikistan.

This recent example demonstrates that the porous Afghan border remains a major security challenge for Tajikistan as well as for other countries in the region. Much of the 1,344 km Afghan-Tajik border lies in exceptionally rugged mountains, making it very difficult for the Tajik border guards to police it. Following the Russian border troops’ withdrawal in 2003, Tajikistan did not immediately have sufficient capacity to effectively control its borders. The national border guards’ capacity still remains very limited despite massive assistance in the form of training, equipment and material support from Russia, the U.S. and the European Union.

The combination of a long and ill-protected border and Tajikistan’s convenient transport links to Russia have made the Tajik-Afghan border a favorite route for narcotics traffickers, smuggling heroin and opium out of Afghanistan. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that despite a 19 percent decrease in opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2008, Afghanistan is still responsible for more than 90 percent of the world’s illicit opium production. An estimated 15 percent of opiates and 20 percent of heroin produced in the country are smuggled through Central Asia – mainly Tajikistan – en route to Russia, Europe and China. According to UNDP estimates, up to 100 tons of Afghan heroin is smuggled through Tajikistan every year. Narcotics seizures by Tajik law-enforcement agencies have been steadily increasing since 2001. Over six tons of drugs were interdicted in Tajikistan in 2008, and the volume of seizures is likely to reach seven tons this year.

Experts suggest that the Afghan narcotics traffickers are becoming increasingly audacious in their tactics in Tajikistan. They frequently kidnap Tajik citizens and use them as ransom to force their relatives to traffic narcotics. Moreover, Afghan smugglers occasionally attack Tajik border guards as retaliation for foiled attempts to smuggle drugs. This is believed to be a reason of a bold attack by some 30 Afghan militants on a Tajik border checkpoint in an area called Sari Mazor in Shurobod District in late February 2009. Two officers from the Tajik Drug Control Agency (DCA) were killed in the attack and three border guards were seriously injured.

Tajikistan is not just a transit route for Afghan narcotics. The country has a higher than global average rate of opiates abuse. UNODC estimates the number of drug addicts in the country to be around 70,000 people, most of whom are heroin addicts. In addition to causing drug addiction and associated HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users, the Afghan narcotics that remain in Tajikistan increase the level of crime, corruption and the rich-poor divide, although these effects of narcotics trafficking remain largely unreported.

The security implications of the porous Tajik-Afghan border for Tajikistan and other states in the region are not limited to narcotics trafficking and its social effects. An ill-protected border makes Tajikistan an easy destination for civil war-era militants who found refuge in Afghanistan, as well as for terrorist and extremist groups. Over the recent years Uzbek officials frequently stated that the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) militants, allegedly responsible for numerous terrorist acts across the country, infiltrated Uzbekistan after crossing the Tajik-Afghan border. More recently, in early July 2009, local and regional media reported that a Tajik civil war-era field commander Abdullo Rakhimov (also known as Mullo Abdullo) returned to Tajikistan with a large group of militant supporters after allegedly spending the last nine years with Taliban allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although the Tajik authorities have repeatedly denied that the warlord had returned to the country, an ongoing large-scale military operation in Mullo Abdullo’s home region in eastern Tajikistan with unexplained casualties among the Tajik military seems to support the claims of the rebel’s return.

Thus, Tajikistan’s porous border with Afghanistan continues to pose a major security challenge for the country and other states in the region, as well as for Russia and Europe which remain  preferred destinations for Afghan-based narcotics smugglers. The cross-border movement of militants through the Tajik-Afghan border also represents a serious threat to China with its volatile western Xinjiang region and the to the United States’ efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. To curtail the destabilizing effects of uncontrolled flow of narcotics, arms and militants through the Tajik-Afghan border, China, the European Union, Russia and United States should step up their commitment to enhance Tajikistan’s border security.