The increased activity of Afghan Taliban in the northern Kunduz province has been a source of concernChina plans to finance and build several outposts and other facilities to beef up Tajikistan's defence capabilities along its border with Afghanistan, the Tajik government said on Monday. The Central Asian nation's 1,345-km border with its southern neighbour is leaky and Dushanbe routinely reports clashes between border guards and armed drug smugglers there. The increased activity of Afghan Taliban in the northern Kunduz province is another source of concern. Russia used to station its own border guards on the frontier until 2005, and after that kept a regiment in the Tajik city of Kulyab, 42 km from the Afghan border. But Moscow pulled the regiment out in December last year and moved it to the capital, Dushanbe, about 200 km further away.

Source: dna September 26, 2016 09:59 UTC