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MOSCOW – The Islamic State group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a knife-and-knife attack on western tourists cycling in Tajikistan and killing two Americans and two Europeans.
In the former Soviet Union, Central Asia did not publicly address the claim of the IS and instead blamed the attack on a banned local Islamist group . Yet the young men appearing in an EI-related video resembled those identified as suspects in the attack who were killed by the Tajik authorities.
The Islamic State group said Monday that several of its soldiers had attacked It was an attack Sunday when a car struck a group of foreign cyclists south of the Tajik capital of Dushanbe. The driver and passengers then went out and attacked the tourists with knives, leaving four dead and three wounded.
Two of the victims were American, one Swiss, and one fourth from the Netherlands, Tajik and foreign officials said. A video posted on a website linked to the IS shows five men sitting on a hill against the backdrop of an IS flag in black and white and declaring their allegiance to the leader of the ISI. EI, Abu Bakr. Baghdadi. Men say that they come from Tajikistan and pledge to slaughter the disbelievers in the name of Allah. A note accompanying the video indicates that the men took part in the weekend attack.
The Interior Ministry of Tajikistan on Tuesday released photos of the bodies of four alleged attackers lying in a field. Three of the young men resemble those of the IS video
He blamed the attack on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, a local party banned for several years for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government
. This predominantly Muslim ex-Soviet nation of some 8 million people was devastated by a five-year civil war with Islamist rebel forces, which ended in 1997.
Alarmed by the rise of the state group Islamic in recent years, Tajikistan authorities have repressed the behaviors and traditions associated with Islam, regulating the way people dress and behave at funerals and ordering men to shave their beards . Critics of this approach say that it could simply radicalize secular Muslims.
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