ARRESTS.

Meanwhile, in the southern town Kurgan-Tyube, Tajik Security Ministry officials announced that they have arrested approximately 50 instigators of the July and August fighting between the Tajik army’s 1st and 11th motorized brigades, which left 32 dead by the official count but hundreds by independent counts. The government plans to transfer both units out of the area. (11)

The aircraft crews are far more likely to have been Russian than Tajik. The fighting in the Tavil-Dara area erupted after government units from Kurgan-Tyube were sent there in violation of an armistice agreement which banned troop increases in the border region. The Dushanbe government wants the two brigades out of Kurgan-Tyube because they are intertwined with rival local clans and are backed by armed civilian groups.

Russia Offers to Train CIS Countries’ Diplomats.