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Tensions are flaring along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan in Central Asia, with the Tajik government reporting multiple armed incursions this month, straining its fragile relationship with Afghan Taliban leaders.
More than a dozen people were killed in attacks by men Tajik authorities describe as “terrorists” and in resulting clashes with Tajik forces, officials in Dushanbe and Beijing said. The victims include Chinese nationals working in remote areas of the mountainous former Soviet republic.
In the latest fighting this week, at least five people were killed in Tajikistan’s Shamsiddin Shokhin district, including “three terrorists”, officials said.
Tajikistan has long opposed the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a country with which it shares a largely unsecured 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border.
Despite cautious diplomatic engagement between the two countries to adapt to new regional realities, analysts say, the frequency of recent border clashes risks eroding the Taliban’s credibility and raises questions about their ability to enforce order and security.
Here’s everything we know about the clashes along the Tajik-Afghan border and why they matter:
What is happening on the Tajik-Afghan border?
The border runs along the Panj River and through the isolated mountainous areas of southern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan.
On Thursday, Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security said in a statement that “three members of a terrorist organization” entered Tajik territory on Tuesday. The committee added that the men were located the next morning and exchanged fire with Tajik border guards. Five people, including the three intruders, were killed, according to the statement.
Tajik officials did not name the gunmen or specify which group they belonged to. Officials, however, said they seized three M-16 rifles, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, three foreign-made pistols with silencers, 10 hand grenades, a night vision scope and explosives from the scene.
Dushanbe said this was the third attack from Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province in the past month that resulted in the deaths of its personnel.
The attacks, Tajik officials said Thursday, “prove that the Taliban government has demonstrated serious and repeated irresponsibility and lack of commitment to fulfilling its international obligations and consistent promises to provide security… and to combat members of terrorist organizations.”
The Tajik statement called on the Taliban to “apologize to the people of Tajikistan and take effective measures to ensure security along the common border.”
Tajikistan has not suggested what the motive for the attacks might be, but the attacks appear to target Chinese businesses and nationals working in the region.
How is China involved in all this?
Beijing is Tajikistan’s largest creditor and one of its most influential economic partners, with a significant footprint in infrastructure projects, mining and other border regions.
China and Tajikistan also share a 477 km (296 mile) border that runs through the high-altitude Pamir Mountains in eastern Tajikistan, adjacent to China’s Xinjiang region.
Two attacks were launched against Chinese businesses and nationals in the last week of November. On November 26, a drone equipped with an explosive device attacked a compound belonging to Shohin SM, a private Chinese gold mining company, in the remote Khatlon region on the Tajik-Afghan border, killing three Chinese citizens.
In a second attack on November 30, a group of men armed with rifles opened fire on employees of the state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation, killing at least two people in Tajikistan’s Darvoz district.
Tajik officials said the attacks originated from villages in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, but did not reveal any affiliation or motive behind the attacks.
Chinese nationals have also been attacked in Pakistan’s Balochistan province and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The Chinese embassy in Dushanbe has advised Chinese businesses and personnel to evacuate the border area. Chinese officials required “Tajikistan takes all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese businesses and citizens in Tajikistan.”
Who is leading these attacks?
Although the attackers have not been identified, analysts and observers believe the attacks bear the hallmarks of the IS affiliate in Khorasan Province (ISKP), which they say aims to discredit the Afghan Taliban leadership.
“ISKP has attacked foreigners inside Afghanistan and carried out attacks against foreigners inside Afghanistan, which is a key pillar of its strategy,” said Ibraheem Bahiss, a Kabul-based analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank.
“The aim is to shatter the image of the Taliban as security providers that regional governments should engage with,” Bahiss told Al Jazeera.
How did the Taliban react to these attacks?
Kabul expressed its “deep sadness” following the killings of Chinese workers on November 28.
The Taliban blamed the violence on an unnamed armed group that it said was “working to create chaos and instability in the region and sow distrust between countries,” and assured Tajikistan of its full cooperation.
After this week’s clashes, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister, said Kabul remained committed to the 2020 Doha Accord, its agreement with the United States for a gradual withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the Taliban’s commitment to preventing Afghanistan from being used as a base to attack other countries.
Addressing the graduation ceremony of police cadets at the National Police Academy in Kabul on Thursday, Haqqani said Afghanistan poses no threat to other countries and the door to dialogue remains open.
“We want to resolve problems, distrust or misunderstandings through dialogue. We have passed the test of confrontation. We may be weak in resources, but our faith and will are strong,” he said, adding that security had improved as Taliban officials now travel around the country unarmed.
The Taliban insist that no “terrorist groups” operate from Afghanistan. However, in a recent report, the UN Sanctions Monitoring Committee cited the presence of several armed groups, including ISKP, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda, Turkistan Islamic Party, Jamaat Ansarullah and Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan.
Jamaat Ansarullah is a Tajik group linked to networks aligned with Al-Qaeda and active mainly in northern Afghanistan, near the Tajik border.
How are relations between Tajikistan and the Taliban going?
For decades, relations between Tajikistan and the Taliban have been defined by deep ideological hostility and ethnic distrust, with Dushanbe one of the group’s fiercest critics in Central Asia.
In the 1990s, Tajikistan aligned itself with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, led by Afghan military commander and former defense minister Ahmad Shah Massoud.
After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Tajikistan was alone among its neighbors in refusing to officially recognize the new government.
However, pragmatic diplomatic engagement began quietly around 2023, driven by economic necessity and shared security fears related to the ISKP presence. Accelerating the restoration of relations, a high-level Tajik delegation visited Kabul in November, the first such visit since the Taliban returned to power.
But the two governments continue to accuse each other of harboring “terrorists”, the main thorn in their bilateral relations, and of smuggling drugs across their border.
The Tajik-Afghan border has long been a major route for trafficking Afghan heroin and methamphetamine to Central Asia and then to Russia and Europe, exploiting the region’s rugged terrain and weak law enforcement.
“The increasing frequency [of the clashes] is new and interesting and raises a point: could we see a new threat emerging,” Bahiss said.
Badakshan province, where Tajik authorities said the attacks on Chinese nationals originated, presents a complex security situation for the Taliban, which is struggling to stem the threat from armed opposition groups, Bahiss added.
This security problem has been further complicated by the Taliban’s crackdown on poppy cultivation in the province, he said. The Taliban faced resistance from northern farmers to this policy. This is largely due to the fact that the relief of Badakshan makes the poppy the only viable cash crop.
How do the Taliban behave with their other neighbors?
Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, some of its neighbors have maintained a pragmatic transactional relationship, while others have not.
Relations with Pakistan, previously its patron, have deteriorated particularly deteriorated. Islamabad accuses Kabul of harboring fighters from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistani Taliban. Tensions over the issue flared in November when Pakistan launched airstrikes in Kabul, Khost and other provinces, provoking Taliban retaliation against border posts.
Dozens of people were killed before a ceasefire was brokered by Qatar and Turkey. However, both sides have since engaged in fighting, blaming each other for breaking the fragile truce.
The Taliban deny Islamabad’s allegations and blame Pakistan for its “own security failures”.
Meanwhile, the Taliban are now investing in develop a new relationship with India, Pakistan’s arch-rival, with delegations visiting Indian cities for discussions on trade and security. New Delhi was previously part of the anti-Taliban alliance. However, this approach has changed with the deterioration of ties between Pakistan and the Taliban.
