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RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 0119
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 0158
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL PRIORITY 0189
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 0127
RUEHVEN/USMISSION USOSCE VIENNA AU PRIORITY
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RUEKJCS/JCS WASHDC PRIORITY 0044

C O N F I D E N T I A L DUSHANBE 000877 
 
NOFORN 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/CA 
DEPARTMENT FOR DS/IP/SCA 
DEPARTMENT FOR DS/TIA/ITA 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/30/2018 
TAGS: PREL ASEC PTER PGOV TI ASEC
SUBJECT: TAJIKISTAN - VISIT TO RASHT WARLORDS UNDERSCORES 
LACK OF GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF OUTLYING REGIONS 
 
REF: DUSHANBE 216 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR TRACEY A. JACOBSON, REASONS 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: In mid-June, the Embassy Regional Security 
Officer (RSO) traveled to the Rasht Valley to assess the 
security situation 4 months after a shootout between local 
and federal level Ministry of Interior forces (reftel). 
Local strongmen are not loyal to the central government, and 
are able and willing to violently defend their turf.  While 
there is no immediate threat to U.S. personnel traveling in 
the area, Dushanbe authorities must tread carefully.  End 
summary. 
 
¶2. (C) June 11-15 the RSO visited the towns of Gharm, 
Tajikabad, Jirgatal, and Tavildara, and passed through 
numerous small villages and settlements in the region. 
Historically, the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) forces had 
significant forces in this area, and many former UTO 
commanders and fighters remain in the region.  The Ministry 
of Interior refused to allow the RSO to meet with local 
Ministry officials in Gharm; the State Committee for National 
Security, however, granted meetings with its local officials. 
 This was the first time the Ministry of Interior refused a 
meeting with the Regional Security Officer.  (Note: During a 
May 26 visit to Gharm by Embassy security local staff doing 
advance preparation for a May 27-28 Ambassadorial visit, the 
Ministry of Interior did allow them to meet with local 
Ministry of Interior officials). 
 
Fortress Rasht 
-------------- 
 
¶3. (U) The road from Dushanbe to Gharm is undergoing 
significant improvements funded by a multi-year Asian 
Development Bank program.  However, road improvements 
completed so far do not extend much beyond Rogun, site of the 
giant hydroelectric dam project the Government dreams of 
building.  Much of the road is still a dirt track along steep 
mountainsides.  The road to Gharm crosses the Surkhob river 
several times, and many bridges are in poor shape and could 
be easily demolished.  If any of these bridges were to 
collapse, they would make driving to the Rasht Valley 
extremely difficult.  The road is also vulnerable to rock 
slides, avalanches, and blockages in the winter and spring. 
 
¶4. (C) In February, local Ministry of Interior officials 
loyal to Mirzokhuja Ahmadov, the Chief of the Ministry,s 
Organized Crime Section in Gharm, and a former opposition 
commander, engaged in a shootout with an OMON detachment led 
by OMON's Chief, who allegedly was on a mission to arrest 
Ahmadov (reftel).  During the shootout, the OMON Chief, 
Colonel Oleg Zakharchenko, was killed.  At that time, RSO 
sources said that Ahmadov and his men knew about the OMON 
detachment's visit well before the OMON troops arrived in 
Gharm. 
 
¶5. (C) On his June visit, RSO noted probable surveillance 
beginning at Dushanbe's eastern gate, and continuing all 
along the road to Gharm.  People along the way would pick up 
their cell phones as soon as embassy vehicles passed.  (Note: 
During the May 26 advance visit to Gharm by Embassy security 
local staff they met with Ahmadov, who told them that he did 
in fact have posts all along the road leading from Dushanbe 
Qin fact have posts all along the road leading from Dushanbe 
to Gharm, and that any convoys, vehicles with darkened 
windows, or with government plates, were tracked and reported 
to him). 
 
¶6. (C) The Regional Security Officer saw Ahmadov twice during 
his visit to Gharm, but because of the prohibition placed on 
him on meeting with local Interior Ministry officials, did 
not attempt to speak with Ahmadov.  On both sightings, 
Ahmadov was walking on the main street in Gharm in front of 
his office, carrying two pistols in a pair of shoulder 
holsters outside his white shirt.  Ahmadov was surrounded by 
eight plain-clothes men who appeared to be carrying concealed 
weapons.  He had a Toyota land cruiser with curtained 
 
windows, no license plate, and rifles lying in the back 
seats.  While government officials have claimed that there is 
a criminal investigation ongoing into his actions during the 
February confrontation with OMON, Ahmadov continues in his 
function as local head of the Ministry of Interior's Office 
for Combating Organized Crime. 
 
¶7. (C) According to multiple sources, following the shooting 
in February, over two hundred young people came to Gharm from 
throughout the Rasht Valley and asked Ahmadov to arm them 
against the government.  Ahmadov refused and reportedly said 
that "now is not the time."  Two sources said Ahmadov could 
quickly gather two to three hundred fighters if the 
government moved to arrest him again.  RSO observed ten to 
fifteen openly armed men guarding Ahmadov's house. 
 
¶8. (C) One local source told RSO that the February 
confrontation was related to a competition between two drug 
trafficking groups ) one headed by Ahmadov and another by 
someone affiliated with the Ministry of Interior's Chief of 
Administration to Combat Organized Crime in Dushanbe.  (Note: 
other sources told the embassy, immediately following the 
February incident, that the shooting stemmed from a struggle 
over control of coal deposits in Rasht valley.) 
 
¶9. (C) Central government authorities have paid a great deal 
of attention to Gharm.  During his five day visit, RSO 
observed several high level visitors, including the Deputy 
Prime Minister, Agriculture Minister, First Deputy Chairman 
of the Border Guards, the Ministry of Defense Major General 
in charge of Interior Quick Reaction Forces, and the Second 
Deputy Chairman for the State Committee for National 
Security.  Each appeared to be in Gharm on separate visits. 
 
The United Tajik Opposition Is Alive and Well 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (C/NF) RSO met with Daler Ubaidulloev (Strictly 
Protect/Noforn), a former opposition commander in the Kamarov 
Valley north of Gharm, and a close contact/source of Embassy 
security local staff.  Following the Civil War, Ubaidulloev 
served briefly as a Ministry of Interior investigator in 
Gharm.  Ubaidulloev accompanied RSO for three days of his 
tour of the region.  Ubaidulloev is now a farmer, but 
according to Embassy security local staff, he has unofficial 
influence in the region.  At nearly every small village they 
passed through, RSO observed that men would approach 
Ubaidulloev with great deference and respect.  On more than 
one occasion, vehicles would stop on the path and four or 
five men would pile out of their cars and walk a hundred 
meters to greet him.  When introduced to RSO, some pulled 
AK-47s out of their vehicles and shot at rocks on the 
hillside to demonstrate their marksmanship, and invited RSO 
to shoot as well.  One invited RSO to come hunting in 
September, "as long as we're not at war then". 
 
¶11. (C/NF) Ubaidulloev guided RSO to a cave in the Kamarov 
Valley where food and ammunition were stored, and showed him 
multiple sites where tree branches were piled for later use 
to conceal equipment, weapons, or personnel. 
Qto conceal equipment, weapons, or personnel. 
 
Drug Smuggling Planes and a Raid on Armory 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶12. (C/NF) While hiking in the mountains, RSO observed two 
different airplanes, approximately fifteen minutes apart, 
flying in the direction of Gharm and appearing to be landing 
there.  When RSO asked Ubaidulloev who was flying in and out 
of an airport which was officially closed to fixed-wing 
traffic, Ubaidulloev said "drug barons."  (Note: While the 
quality of housing drops precipitously the further away from 
Dushanbe one gets, in Darband, near Gharm, a new development 
stands in stark contrast, where large new homes on sizable 
plots of land are conspicuous). 
 
¶13. (C/NF) Ubaidulloev told RSO that during the first week in 
June, twenty men dressed in black, wearing masks and carrying 
 
Kalashnikov rifles stormed the Ministry of Interior office in 
Kamarov and seized their weapons.  The men spoke Tajik with a 
local Gharm accent, but no one has so far claimed 
responsibility for the raid.  This incident has not been 
reported in the press. 
 
Gone to Russia 
-------------- 
 
¶14. (C) RSO met with the United Nations area manager and 
security assistant at their office in Gharm.  They said that 
over seventy percent of local men were working in Russia. 
The area manager also added that Gharm lacked electricity for 
6 ) 7 months of the year.  The United Nations is able to 
meet with the Ministry of Interior and State Committee for 
National Security without a problem, and they provided 
whatever assistance they could.  When asked about unexploded 
mines, he indicated there were still many unexploded cluster 
bombs in the area, dropped by the Uzbek Air force during the 
civil war.  The area manager mentioned that recently 
Ahmadov's men arrested a girl in Gharm for having her picture 
painted by a foreign artist, on the charge that this violated 
Islamic law.  The UN area manager described this incident as 
very unusual. 
 
¶15. (C) The American program manager of Mercy Corps, a 
U.S.-sponsored non-governmental organization doing 
agricultural food security programs in Gharm, told RSO that 
she had no security problems.  She had lived in Gharm and the 
region for 18 months, and said she personally felt safer in 
Gharm than Dushanbe.  She described locals opposed to the 
Government as quick to mobilize, but slow to act ) and 
unlikely to act without some provocation and instigation. 
She sensed no hostility to foreigners in Gharm, and doubted 
that locals would attack a foreigner.  She said locals took 
seriously their responsibility to protect their guests, and 
would be collectively offended if anything happened to a 
foreigner in their area.  She also said there was still much 
positive feeling among the locals for foreigners who, during 
the civil war and since, helped by providing humanitarian 
relief when the central government did nothing. 
 
No Threat to Dushanbe, But Dushanbe Cannot Control 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶16. (C) Comment: The Ministry of Interior's refusal of 
permission for the RSO to meet with local Ministry of 
Interior officials may have been to prevent the embarrassing 
spectacle of Mirzokhuja Ahmadov, himself a Ministry of 
Interior officer, receiving a foreign official guest while 
defying Tajik security forces.  The Tajik Government has so 
far been unable to project security forces into the Gharm 
area to detain Ahmadov, and it is not likely that the 
Government will succeed in reestablishing effective control 
there without using large numbers of troops.  However, 
attempting this would be easily detected in advance, and 
could rally an armed opposition and create a larger conflict. 
 The volume and type of government visitors to Gharm likely 
reflect an attempt to collect intelligence and ascertain 
options to resolve the situation with Ahmadov, without 
inflaming the situation further.  End comment. 
Qinflaming the situation further.  End comment. 
JACOBSON