DUSHANBE. Oct 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Four activists of the Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (IDU) have been killed and another has been detained, Tajikistan's Deputy Interior Minister Tokhir Normatov told Interfax on Sunday evening.
"A sweep operation was carried out outside Isfara [440 kilometers northwest of Dushanbe, on the border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan], in which four IDU militants were killed and another was detained, and a large amount of ammunition and arms was seized," Normatov said.
The militants killed and detained could have been those who had crossed into Kyrgyzstan recently, but not from Tajik territory, he also said.
The Kyrgyz border service reported on October 15 that unidentified gunmen had crossed into the village of Kocho-Karyn from Tajikistan and opened fire at Kyrgyz border guards and then fled. No one was injured in the fighting. Tajik border guards denied claims the gunmen had crossed into Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan.
"We also think that one of the IDU militants killed Lt. Col. Saidmurod Saidov," Normatov said.
Saidov, the head of the Isfara police department's criminal investigation group, was killed at the gates of his residence on September 18, earlier reports said.