Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital and most populous city. Tajikistan is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor.
The politics of Tajikistan takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Legislative power is vested in both the executive branch and the two chambers of parliament.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was a militant Islamist group formed in 1998 by Islamic ideologue Tahir Yuldashev and former Soviet paratrooper Juma Namangani; both ethnic Uzbeks from the Fergana Valley. Its original objective was to overthrow President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and create an Islamic state under Sharia; however, in subsequent years, it reinvented itself as an ally of Al-Qaeda. The group also maintained relations with Afghan Taliban in 1990s. However, later on, relations between the Afghan Taliban and the IMU started declining.
Emomali Rahmon is a Tajik politician who has been serving as 3rd President of Tajikistan since 16 November 1994. Previously he was the Chairman of the Supreme Assembly of Tajikistan, as the de facto head of state from 20 November 1992 to 16 November 1994. Since 18 March 1998, he has also served as the leader of the People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan, which dominates the Parliament of Tajikistan. On 30 September 1999, he was elected vice-president of the UN General Assembly for a one-year term.
Otakhon Latifi was a noted journalist and politician from Tajikistan.
Sunni Islam is, by far, the most widely practiced religion in Tajikistan. Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school is the recognized religious tradition of Tajikistan since 2009. According to a 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim,, with some Sufi orders.
The Tajikistani Civil War, also known as the Tajik Civil War, began in May 1992 and ended in June 1997. Regional groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan rose up against the newly-formed government of President Rahmon Nabiyev, which was dominated by people from the Khujand and Kulob regions. The rebel groups were led by a combination of liberal democratic reformers and Islamists, who would later organize under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition. The government was supported by Russian military and border guards.
The United Tajik Opposition (UTO) was an alliance of democratic, nationalist and Islamist forces that officially banded together in 1993, after the most violent phase of the Tajik Civil War. The UTO fought against the pro-communist and Khujandi/Kulyabi government forces led by Emomali Rahmon, then Emomali Rakhmonov.
Sayid Abdulloh Nuri, also transliterated as Abdullah Nuri, led the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan from 1993 until he died of cancer in late 2006. During the Tajik Civil War of 1992 to 1997 he led the United Tajik Opposition. Nuri and President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov ended the civil war by signing the Tajik National Peace Accord in 1997.
The Islamic Movement of Tajikistan or Harakati Islamii Tajikistan is the branch of the Islamic Movement of Central Asia, a militant Islamist organization, that operates in Tajikistan. The IMCA, and by extension the IMT, is affiliated with Al Qaeda.
Terrorism in Tajikistan stems largely from the forces of the political opposition who opposed the comprehensive peace agreement that ended the civil war in 1997. President Emomali Rahmonov and UTO leader Said Abdullah Nuri signed the agreement on 27 June, believing it would bring an end to hostilities. However, dissident Islamist militants led by Tohir Yo‘ldosh and Juma Namangani formed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in 1998, allying with Al-Qaeda and vowing to unite Central Asia as an Islamic state. The latest terror attacks took place in the Qabodiyon District on November 6, 2019, when a policeman and a border guard were killed by several Islamic State militants. 15 terrorists were also killed.
Haji Akbar Turajanzade is a Senator in the National Assembly of Tajikistan. He served as the Qazi Qalon, the highest Muslim authority in Tajikistan, from 1988 to 1991. He served as the second-in-command of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and the United Tajik Opposition from 1993 until his expulsion from the party in 1999. He served as the Deputy Prime Minister in the Tajik government after the civil war.
Jumaboi Ahmadjonovich Khodjiyev, better known by the nom de guerreJuma Namangani, was an Uzbek Islamist militant with a substantial following who co-founded and led the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) with Tohir Yo'ldosh. The IMU received substantial Taliban patronage, and was allowed to operate freely in northern Afghanistan.
The insurgency in the Gorno-Badakhshan region in Tajikistan from 2010 to 2015 was an armed conflict between the Tajik Army and Islamist militants, led by numerous leaders from the Tajikistani Civil War. The conflict evolved in 2010 and climaxed in 2012, with the defeat of main rebel forces. Other incidents took place in September 2015, when former deputy defense minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda led an armed uprising, suspected of ties to the Islamic Renaissance Party.
Muhiddin Kabiri or Muhyiddin Kabiri, formerly known as Muhiddin Tilloevich Kabirov, is a Tajik politician, former member of the parliament of Tajikistan and the chairman of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) which was banned in Tajikistan in August 2015. Kabiri is fluent in Tajik, Persian, Arabic, Russian, and English.
Group 24 is a political opposition movement in Tajikistan. It opposes the rule of president Emomali Rahmon, who it accuses of corruption and nepotism.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group seeking to re-establish "the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)" as an Islamic "superstate" where Muslim-majority countries are unified and ruled under Islamic Shariah law, and which eventually expands globally to include non-Muslim states. In Central Asia, the party has expanded since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s from a small group to "one of the most powerful organizations" operating in Central Asia. The region itself has been called "the primary battleground" for the party. Uzbekistan is "the hub" of Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Central Asia, while its "headquarters" is now reportedly in Kyrgyzstan.
Gulmurod Salimovich Khalimov (1975–2017) was a Tajik and Islamist military commander. He was a lieutenant-colonel and commander of the police special forces of the Interior Ministry of Tajikistan until 2015, when he defected to the Islamic State. In September 2016, he was reported to have been appointed as the minister of war of IS in place of Abu Omar al-Shishani; his appointment had not been announced by IS for fears that he might be targeted in airstrikes by the anti-IS coalition. On 8 September 2017, Khalimov was allegedly killed during a Russian airstrike near Deir ez-Zor, Syria. However, the Tajik government, United Nations, and the United States believed that he was still alive by 2019, though his exact fate remained disputed. By 2020, Islamist militants claimed he had died at some point; this source was considered unreliable by the Tajik government. Regardless, the United States had removed Khalimov from their Rewards for Justice Program by 2021.
Abduhalim Mirzo Nazarzoda was a military leader in the Tajik National Army and the former Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Tajikistan.
The terrorist attack against cyclists in Tajikistan happened on July 29, 2018 (UTC+05:00). Four Western touring cyclists were killed while cycling in the Danghara District, and two more were injured after five IS members rammed them with a car and then got out of the vehicle and stabbed them.
