MOSCOW. Sept 21 (Interfax-AVN) - The major terrorist attack in eastern Tajikistan in which 23 servicemen were killed and 10 more wounded may be aimed at undermining stability in Central Asia as a whole, not just in Tajikistan, former Soviet Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Vladislav Achalov said
"I am not ruling out the possibility that the Sunday major provocation against the Tajik armed forces may act as a detonator for undermining stability throughout the Central Asian region, not just in that republic," he told Interfax-AVN on Monday.
He said that such a large-scale attack required forces and means.
"It is hard to tell today what particular goals the attackers had but one thing is apparent, that it was a carefully planned large-scale act of sabotage which cannot be organized off hand," he said.
Achalov did not rule out the possibility that similar provocations may be staged against Russian servicemen deployed at the military base near Dushanbe. "Nobody can rule out that a similar terrorist act may be organized against our servicemen that are now conducting many joint events with formations of the Tajik armed forces in the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO]," he said.
Russia must express its clear and tough stance on the terrorist act and the situation emerging in Tajikistan, he said.
The CSTO should also be more active in guaranteeing the security of its member states. "The recent developments in southern Kyrgyzstan strikingly demonstrated that it is time for the CSTO to switch from coordinating various projects to planning practical measures to repel terrorist attacks, primarily in specific member-states," he said.