ARMED GROUPS SHOW WHO’S BOSS NEAR DUSHANBE.

Entering the town of Kofarnihon, a district center situated only 20 kilometers east of Dushanbe, Tajik opposition detachments commanded by Abdul Vose and Rahmon Sanginov seized several officers of the Presidential Guard and the commanders of local police in order to force the government to release two captured opposition fighters. The government complied yesterday, even as a Foreign Ministry official lamented that the insurgents’ operation aimed "to show to the population who is the real boss in town and to demonstrate their impunity." The Dushanbe government and UN envoy Gerd-Dietrich Merrem described the incident as the first violation of last week’s government-opposition peace protocol, which forms a basis of a broader political settlement due to be signed this month. (Interfax, Itar-Tass, June 2)

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