Tajikistan security services kill two 'criminal leaders' in restive east, state media reports | South China Morning Post

Security services killed two leaders of a "criminal group" and arrested 10 others in ex-Soviet Tajikistan's restive east, the Central Asian country's state information service reported on Sunday. The two men "put up armed resistance" using grenades and assault rifles but were "liquidated" by security services, said the state information service Khovar. Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, commonly known by its Soviet-era acronym GBAO, has been a periodic flashpoint since the end of a civil war in Tajikistan in the 1990s. Why China is funding a base in Tajikistan The region borders China and Afghanistan and was a bastion of resistance to…