Kurdish fighters in northern Syria have apparently detained a close associate of a fugitive Tajik police colonel who joined the extremist group Islamic State (IS) in 2015.
The Kurdish fighters said in a statement last week that they had detained a Tajik man identified as Dilovar Azimovich Dodoev along with two other alleged IS fighters as they were trying to cross the border between Syria and Turkey.
The statement includes pictures of the three men
Dodoev's father, from Tajikistan's northern city of Istaravshan, confirmed to RFE/RL on February 4 that the Tajik man was his son.
Dodoev has been frequently shown posing next to Gulmurod Halimov on photos and videos distributed by the IS group in recent years.
Halimov, a former commander of Tajik Interior Ministry special forces, is one of IS's most notable international recruits.
In 2016, the U.S. State Department named him as a key member of IS and offered a reward of $3 million for information on his whereabouts.
There were several claims that he had been killed in an air strike in Iraq, but Tajik authorities have not been able to confirm the reports.
