DUSHANBE -- A Tajik security official's statement on a deadly attack on a border post earlier in November has contradicted official reports about the incident that claimed many lives.
A representative of Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security, Muhammad Sattarov, said at a conference in Dushanbe on November 25 that nine men, 11 women, and 13 children between the ages of 4 years and 15 years were among the attackers on a border post near Uzbekistan, located in Tajikistan's Rudaki district about 60 kilometers southwest of Dushanbe.
That conflicts with statements from officials who said after the November 6 attack that 20 Islamic State (IS) militants entered Tajikistan from neighboring Afghanistan and attacked the border post, of whom 15 were killed and five were captured.
The officials also said that a police officer and a border guard were killed in the clashes.
However, local authorities, sources in the capital Dushanbe, and sources in other parts of Tajikistan later told RFE/RL that at least five more border guards were killed in the attack.
Further clouding the incident was an online statement purportedly issued by IS on November 8 that claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that IS militants had killed 10 Tajik border guards.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry has said that it did not believe there was any connection between the attack and Afghanistan.
Tajik Security Official Muddies Official Reports On Border Post Attack
Police investigators at the border post after the attack on November 6.