Ukraine War Day #767: Terrorist Relatives Questioned

Dear Readers:

Still continuing on the terrorist theme, I have this ancillary story about the Tajik families and relatives of the suspected Crocus terrorists. The reporter is Elena Evstratova.

Geographically-challenged readers may, or may not, know that Tajikistan is an independent nation; but used to be part of the same nation with Russia, when they both were Soviet Republics. The capital of Tajikistan is Dushanbe, boasting a population of over a million people. As the map shows Tajikistan shares borders with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan.

Although it does not share a direct border with Russia, Tajikistan and Russia still have important relations, and Russia still exerts quite a lot of influence over its former satellite fellow Republic. Tajik migrant workers are among those who help the Russian economy by providing cheap labor. But, like any migrants, this community can also be a source of criminal activities and a breeding ground for criminal gangs. Which obviously leads to inter-ethnic tensions in the Russian heartland. However, in the aftermath of the Crocus attack, the Russian government and public have wisely decided to defer the migrant issue so as not to confuse it with the terrorist issue. Dumb Americans could learn something from that, by the way.

Given this background, the Russian press is reporting on the detention of families and relatives of the suspected Crocus terrorists. These stories also hint at the close collaboration between the police and security services of Tajikistan with their giant not-neighbor. To be more specific: For several days now, the Crocus families have been interned in Dushanbe prisons. And heartily interrogated. The President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, has personally taken charge of the investigation of the terrorists and their families.

Tajik President Rahmon

One only needs to think about this for a moment, to understand why this is such a big deal for a small nation like Tajikistan, and why it is so important to get to the bottom of it: Who was involved, what did the relatives know, is there a wider ring? etc etc.

I saw this piece in Tsargrad TV news, which adds additional information: The house owned by the family of Shamsiddin Faridunni was sealed up with police crime tape. (Shamsiddin is the shivering blubbering guy in the video who did not get his ear cut off. Amazingly, he is said to have been the leader of this little gang of four. Perhaps because his knowledge Russian was less horrible than that of the others.) Sham’s family lives about 50 km from Dushanbe, in a village called Loiobi. Members of the family were seen taken away by men wearing police uniforms, as a nosy neighbor reported to the press. Sham himself migrated to Moscow about half a year ago. Prior to that he worked in a bakery in the town of Hissar. According to the nosy neighbor, Fariduni’s wife had told her that her husband (Sham) had gone to Moscow to find some work, and that he regularly sent the money back home.

According to the newspaper Gazeta, as reported by Tsargrad, the Tajik authorities allowed Russian investigators into the country, to question the families of the four suspects. The Tajiks themselves collected all of the family members from the various villages they lived in, and brought them all to Dushanbe for questioning, in the same central location, as a convenience for the Russian detectives.

President Rahmon has expressed real concern about the activities of radical Islamist preachers who are recruiting over the internet and brainwashing the youth of his nation.