Eurasianet reported on September 8 that early on September 6, the security services in Tajikistan issued a press release containing some apparently alarming news.

The State Committee for National Security, or SCNS, reportedly claimed in the statement that government forces had confronted a trio of heavily armed Islamist militants bent on mounting deadly attacks on Independence Day, which falls on September 9.

According to the press release, the men, all Tajik nationals, had crossed the border from Afghanistan carrying rifles, handguns, ammunition, grenades, medicinal supplies, religious literature, blueprints of government buildings, US$10,000 in cash, and even a beard trimmer. 

This purported plot, hatched in cooperation with an unspecified foreign intelligence service agency, was thwarted, however.  All three men were reportedly cornered in a location in Darvoz district of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region, or GBAO, near the Afghan border, and were killed after they refused to surrender.

Eurasianet notes that frustratingly for reporters and members of the public eager to learn more, the would-be militants have quickly been buried at undisclosed locations.  No explanations have reportedly been offered for how the militants were able to hide out for several days in a sensitive and closely guard near-border area.  And it is also unclear why metadata of the SCNS-issue images dated them to September 2020, Eurasianet added.