DUSHANBE -- Three Chinese citizens working for a gold-extraction company in southern Tajikistan have been killed in an attack -- the second in a year -- that Tajik authorities say was carried out from across the border with Afghanistan.
Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on November 27 that the assault targeted a compound belonging to Shohin SM, a private gold-mining company operating in the Shamsiddin Shohin district along the Tajik–Afghan frontier.
Tajikistan and Afghanistan's Taliban have engaged in a flurry of diplomacy in recent months to ease tensions and prevent armed clashes along their long, shared border.
According to the ministry, the attackers used firearms and a drone equipped with an explosive device to strike the workers’ facility.
“As a result of the attack, three employees of Shohin SM, all Chinese citizens, were killed,” the statement said.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, Dushanbe and Kabul have accused each other of harboring armed groups.
Tajikistan was the only neighboring country to publicly oppose the Taliban's return to power, calling the militant group a threat to regional stability.
In particular, Dushanbe has long expressed concern about factions affiliated with the Islamic State–Khorasan Province (ISKP), Central Asian extremist networks, and armed criminal gangs hiding in Afghan territory.
In November last year, Tajik authorities said armed groups carried out an attack in the same sector, killing one Chinese citizen and injuring five others, including four Chinese nationals and one Tajik man.
The incident also comes amid growing anti-Chinese sentiment in several parts of Central Asia, a strategic and energy-rich region where China has become a key economic and political player.
Tajikistan's Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” both the cross-border incursion and the killing of foreign nationals, urging Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to “take effective measures to ensure stability and security along the border.”
The statement said that despite Tajik authorities' “continuous efforts to maintain security and create conditions for mutually beneficial cooperation” in border regions, criminal groups operating inside Afghanistan “continue destabilizing actions” along the border.
Meanwhile, on November 27, Afghanistan's Taliban-run Interior Ministry announced that a delegation led by the governor of the country's Badakhshan province and a senior commander in the Taliban border forces, Maulavi Abdul Mannan Hasan, had traveled to Tajikistan.
According to the Taliban statement, the delegation met officials in Tajikistan’s Badakhshan region to discuss cross-border cooperation and security coordination. Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry has not publicly acknowledged the visit.
