The Islamic State claims to have killed 4 cyclists in Tajikistan

MOSCOW – A car toppled a group of cycle tourists in the central Asian state of Tajikistan over the weekend, killing four people from the United States, the Netherlands and Switzerland . On Monday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a video obtained Monday by Radio Free Europe and supposed to show the attack, we can see a car turn around on a rural road and then accelerate through a group of fallen and injured cyclists. The Tajik authorities said that the occupants of the car then went out and stabbed and killed some survivors, leaving little doubt as to the intention of the attack.

In a bulletin issued Monday by the internal Islamic State news agency, the group described the attackers as "soldiers of the Islamic State" and said that the "Islamic State" was the only one in the group. attack was "in response to calls to target citizens of the coalition countries."

This sentence refers to a speech made in 2014 by the former spokesman of the terrorist group. he called on the group's supporters to carry out attacks in their countries in every way possible, including using cars to crush pedestrians. The choice of language indicates that the militants consider the attackers of Tajikistan as inspired by the propaganda and that they were not deployed directly by the terrorist organization.

The Tajik Interior Ministry confirmed the four deaths and said that the services killed four people suspected of being involved in the attack, all from Tajikistan, and arrested a fifth person. Tajik police said they found a Daewoo car damaged following a collision with the cyclists.

The US Embassy in Tajikistan confirmed in a statement posted on its website that two of the four people killed in the attack were US citizens. They were part of a group of cycling cyclists in the Danghara district, about 60 miles south of the country's capital, Dushanbe, on a scenic mountain road popular with Western cyclists for its spectacular scenery and far away. the border with Afghanistan.

The officials identified the two others who were killed as citizens of Switzerland and the Netherlands. Three other cyclists were injured. Ferghana, an information site about Central Asia, said that a cyclist, a Frenchman, had escaped danger because he was behind the group before the attack do not start.

Although Islamist movements have been active in Central Asia for decades, they are not known. targeting Western tourists, who visit the historic towns of the Uzbekistan Silk Road and go hiking and biking in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Ferghana information website suggested that the attack could scare off tourists.

The claim of responsibility of the Islamic State appears to be the first to be attacked inside Tajikistan, according to analysts. This is surprising given the large number of Tajiks who reportedly joined the militants.

According to a recent report (19459009) of the Soufan Group, at least 1,300 citizens of Tajikistan surrendered to jihad in Iraq and Syria. This is among the highest figures for a single country. By contrast, no more than a few dozen Americans would have entered the territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Central Asia is better known as a source of activists who strike Europeans and Americans elsewhere. Tajiks and Uzbeks perpetrated or attempted terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg, Russia and Stockholm, and an Uzbek who emigrated to the United States in 2010 drove a leased truck to the bicycle path along the Hudson River in Manhattan in October. Tajikistan is a former poor Soviet state that waged a civil war against Islamist insurgents in the 1990s. Since then, it has been plagued by local unrest and the violence generated by opium smuggling in Afghanistan.

A car bomb attack in 2016 in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, hit the Chinese embassy and was attributed to a militant group linked to al Qaeda and composed of Uighurs, a group Ethnic West China

a statement on Monday warns tourists in the region, "especially those who hike or bike in the southern part, to be extremely cautious."