DUSHANBE, October 5, 2010, Asia-Plus -- Seven armed militants of illegal armed gangs have been killed in Kamarob Gorge over the past days, Tohir Toshmatov, the chief o the staff of the Ministry of Interior (MoI), told Asia-Plus Tuesday afternoon.

In all, 15 insurgents were reported killed since September 22 when security forces launched a special operation in Rasht district.

Toshmatov noted that government forces also sustained casualties.  The commander of the Khatlon special police unit Zoirsho Qalandarov and several servicemen of the Khatlon special police unit were killed in a clash on October 4.  The exact number of combat casualties among government forces is not reported.

We will recall that the government forces launched a special operation on September 22 to hunt down persons involved in a September 19 attack on a military convoy in Kamarob Gorge that killed at least 23 government troops.  Several other soldiers injured during the attack later died in hospital, bringing the total number of casualties from that attack to 28.