DUSHANBE, May 17 (AVN) - The Russian Federal Border Guard Service (FBGS) is completing deployment of additional units in the Tajik areas controlled by the Moscow and Panj (Pyandzh) detachments, a source in the FBGS group headquarters in Tajikistan said on Thursday.
The units form part of the FBGS director's reserve, the source told the Military News Agency. They are being deployed in Tajikistan to strengthen the border with Afghanistan, as their new deployment areas have been the target of mass assault launched by Afgan and Tajik drug smugglers this year.
Border guards have detained over 70 violators and prevented more than 30 breakthrough attempts on the Tajikistan-Afghanistan frontier since January 1, 2001, the source said. They had to engage armed violator groups 15 times and came under small-arms and heavy-arms fire from the Afghan territory almost 20 times.
Thanks to border guards' efforts, over 1t of drugs, including almost 700kg of heroin, were seized from illegal turnover. Almost 90 percent of drugs were confiscated in the area controlled by the Moscow detachment. Besides, Russian border guards seized 25 pieces of small arms and about 2,000 pieces of various ammunition.