KABUL: (Middle East Press) Over 400 Tajik citizens from the Central Asian country have joined the ISIL Takfiri group, which is wreaking havoc and committing atrocious crimes across Iraq and Syria, said a senior Tajik official Monday.
These people, mostly aged between 18 and 35, are fighting alongside ISIL extremists in either of the two Arab countries, Tajikistan’s Attorney General Yusuf Ahmedov said.
Ahmedov added that some 40 Tajik nationals have travelled to the two crisis-stricken Middle Eastern countries with their families, and nearly 60 have been killed in ISIL’s acts of terror in Syria and Iraq.
On May 30, American officials confirmed that Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, the head of the Tajikistan Special Forces unit known as Omon, has defected to ISIL.
European countries have repeatedly expressed concern over the ISIL’s influence across the continent. Authorities fear that the European militants will use their combat skills against their countries upon returning home.
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