The Taliban junta in Afghanistan offered condolences on Friday to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for the murder of three Chinese nationals in Tajikistan by militants who may have struck across the border from Afghan soil.
On the other hand, the Taliban was silent at press time on the deadly attack on U.S. National Guardsmen by an Afghan national in Washington, DC.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan expresses its deep condolences to the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Tajikistan regarding the reprehensible incident of the killing of three Chinese nationals in the Shamsuddin Shahin area of the Khatlon Region of Tajikistan, and strongly condemns this incident,” the Taliban regime said Friday.
The incident in question took place in Tajikistan near the border with Afghanistan on Wednesday. According to the Chinese embassy in Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe, three Chinese nationals employed by a company called LLC Shohin SM were targeted and killed by a squad of gunmen, plus an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) loaded with hand grenades. The attack appears to have been launched from within Afghanistan.
Shohin SM is a Chinese gold-mining company. The foreign ministry of Tajikistan said the assault was directed against one of the company’s gold mining facilities in the border district of Shamsiddin Shohin.
“Despite the constant efforts by Tajikistan to maintain security and create an atmosphere of peace and stability in the border areas between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the disruptive actions by criminal groups located in the territory of Afghanistan still continue,” the Tajik Foreign Ministry complained.
“The circle involved in this incident is one that makes efforts to create chaos, instability and distrust in the region,” the Taliban foreign ministry said in its initial statement on the attack.
The Chinese embassy in Tajikistan warned Chinese citizens to “refrain from investing or working in the Tajik-Afghanistan border region” due to the mounting dangers, and advised Chinese nationals working in the area to “evacuate as soon as possible.”
The attack highlighted growing tensions in the region after the Taliban takeover in 2021, as Tajik officials and the Taliban have repeatedly accused each other of harboring dangerous militants who attack across the border from safe havens in both countries.
Tajikistan is particularly concerned about elements of ISIS known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) and other Central Asian terrorist organizations finding shelter in the poorly managed border regions of Afghanistan. Previous attacks by such groups against targets in Tajikistan have injured and killed Chinese nationals working there.
Pakistan, which originally supported the Taliban but has grown very hostile toward the regime in Kabul, jumped into the controversy on Thursday with a lengthy statement on the Tajikistan attack.
After expressing its “deepest condolences” to China and Tajikistan over the deadly attack, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said, “The use of armed drones in the incident underlines the gravity of threat emanating from Afghanistan, and the brazenness behind it.”
“As a neighbor that has repeatedly suffered terrorist attacks orchestrated from Afghan soil, the people of Pakistan fully understand and share the grief and anguish of our Chinese friends and Tajik partners,” the statement said.
“The repeated use of Afghan soil by terrorist elements, and their continued presence under the patronage of the Afghan Taliban regime, is a matter of serious concern of the entire region and the wider international community,” Pakistan charged.
The Taliban sent a delegation to Tajikistan to discuss border security on Thursday, led by the governor of Afghanistan’s border province of Badakhshan. The Badakhshan region extends across the border into Tajikistan, where it is known as the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast.
As of Friday morning, the Taliban had offered no condolences for the deadly attack on two U.S. National Guard soldiers in Washington, DC, by an Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal. One of the victims, Sarah Beckstrom, died from the injuries she sustained in the assault.
Lakanwal was admitted to the United States after President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in 2021, which handed control of the country over to the Taliban. President Donald Trump announced on Friday he would seek a permanent halt to migration from Afghanistan, and all other Third World nations, as a consequence of the attack.
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