This is how he was when he brought E. Rahmon to power in the early 1990s
Well, as usual... a revolution (or a satrap who has seized power - everyone will understand as they see fit) devours its children...
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Former Minister of Internal Affairs, ex-ambassador of Tajikistan to Turkey, one of the commanders of the Popular Front that brought President Emomali Rahmon to power, Yakub Salimov was released on Tuesday morning after 13 years in prison.
Former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic was detained in Moscow in June 2003.
On February 24, 2004, he was transferred to his homeland at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of Tajikistan. Before his extradition, the former minister was held in the Lefortovo detention center. Salimov's extradition took place only after the Russian side received guarantees from Tajikistan not to apply the death penalty against him.
In April 2004, Salimov was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Tajikistan to 15 years in prison on charges of treason, illegal possession of weapons and abuse of official position. The prison term was reduced twice due to an amnesty.
Historical reference:
During the civil war of 1992-1993, Salimov was the commander of one of the Popular Front units.
In December 1993, at the 16th session of the Supreme Council of the Republic, he was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan.
In 1995, Salimov was relieved of his post and sent as ambassador to Turkey, where he worked for more than a year.
After returning to Dushanbe and until 1997, he worked as chairman of the country's Customs Committee.
Shortly after this appointment, he, along with a number of Tajik military personnel, participated in an attempted rebellion, and after its failure, he disappeared.
fresh photo stolen from internet
Biography of Yakub Salimov:
SALIMOV Yakub
Tajik field commander, leader of the Republican People's Party
(CHP), former Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan
Yakub Salimov was born in 1956, Tajik.
He had two criminal convictions.
In 1985, he kidnapped two girls for ransom, for which he was arrested in the Penguin cafe in Dushanbe. He was convicted, but did not serve out the sentence.
He was a member of the opposition Front for the Salvation of the Fatherland, but then joined the pro-communist Popular Front of Tajikistan (PFT) in 1992 and became one of the field commanders of the PFT.
About organized crime in Tajikistan:
Organized crime in Tajikistan has a long history and its own regional characteristics (the clan structure of Tajik society had a great influence on the formation of this phenomenon). The proximity of such a traditionally troubled country as Afghanistan, and the difficult economic situation, which was significantly aggravated by the Civil War of 1992-1997, became the breeding ground in which organized crime in Tajikistan flourished.
As a result of the civil war, Tajikistan actually disintegrated into ethnocultural areas inhabited by subethnic groups of Tajiks, as well as Pamir peoples.
Poverty, violence and pervasive corruption, which were not eradicated even after the 1997 truce, led to demographic and ethnic changes, namely, they gave rise to a wave of refugees, including the exodus of the Russian-speaking population, and a large flow of people flocking to work in Russia and, to a lesser extent, in Kazakhstan .
Regionalism today seems to be one of the most important factors determining both the development of the republic as a whole and the structure of organized crime in Tajikistan in particular.
Local power almost everywhere passed to corrupt officials, influential businessmen and local leaders of criminal groups (often all these forms are combined in one person).
To protect their rights, the population turns to “their” criminal leaders, territorial and clan men’s associations, not trusting this function to the state apparatus.
Drugs have become such an integral part of the daily lives of the country's citizens that in some remote areas they are often used as a means of purchasing houses, cars or livestock.
In November 1991, Leninabad resident Rakhmon Nabiyev, who previously served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Tajikistan (1973-1982) and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Tajik SSR (1982-1985), won the presidential elections.
However, the opposition, which was gaining weight in the form of “democratic” and Islamic forces, moved on to confrontation with the central government (the Islamist leaders were the head of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tajikistan, Khoja Akbar Turajonzoda, and the former leader of the radical Islamist youth organization “Nahzati Islami”, Said Abdullo Nuri, and the chairman of the Democratic Party Tajikistan became Shodmon Yusuf).
By March 1992 a crisis in the relationship between the government and the opposition has matured. At Nabiyev’s command, on March 6, a prominent democrat, chairman of the Dushanbe City Executive Committee, deputy of the Supreme and City Councils Maksud Ikramov was arrested (he lobbied for the interests of the Penjikent group, controlled privatization in the capital, the large Express Bank, trade relations with Iran and the sale of cars).
On March 11, the Dushanbe City Court sentenced one of the leaders of the Rastokhez opposition movement, Mirbobo Mirrakhimov, to two years in prison for “slander” (with these actions, Nabiyev actually broke the truce signed with the opposition forces in the fall of 1991).
The last straw was the live broadcast on March 25 on republican television of a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan, at which the Chairman of the Supreme Council Kendzhaev, in an extremely offensive form, accused the Minister of Internal Affairs Mamadayoz Navzhuvanov, a Pamiri by birth, of exceeding his powers, and he, in turn, accused Kendzhaev of discrimination against highlanders.
Already on the morning of March 26, about 500 people, mostly immigrants from the Pamirs, gathered on Shokhidon Square in front of Nabiev’s residence. Over the next few days, their number continuously grew; groups from other regions of Tajikistan joined the ranks of the protesters.
April 1, 1992 the so-called “Public Committee for the Protection of the Constitutional System” announced an alternative pro-government rally on Ozodi Square (it was actively financed by the “red directors” of enterprises in the Leninabad region), however after the end of Ramadan on April 4 Over 50 thousand people from rural areas of eastern Tajikistan arrived at Shokhidon Square.
By April 21, 1992, the opposition took about 20 people hostage, among whom were 16 deputies of the Supreme Council and 2 deputy prime ministers. On April 22, Kendzhaev’s resignation from the post of speaker of parliament was announced, but on April 24, by presidential decree, he was appointed chairman of the National Security Committee (NSC). In the Kulyab region, persecution of members of the opposition camp began, sanctioned by the imam of the Kulyab mosque, Mullah Haydar Sharifov (the so-called “red mullah”).
Islamists and “democrats,” rightfully fearing for their lives, began to leave the region en masse. On April 29, to two rallies in Dushanbe, on Shokhidon and Ozodi squares, a third was added - on Sadriddin Aini Square, organized by the so-called “Dushanbe youth”, which included members of thirteen youth mafia groups.
Thus, criminal structures almost openly entered the political arena. At the “youth” meeting, a demand was made to Nabiev, from whom they expected measures aimed at resolving the conflict. However, the session of the Supreme Council again appointed Kendzhaev as speaker of parliament, after which the president attempted to suppress the opposition by force.
On May 1, he announced a call to the National Guard, issued an order to form a separate battalion in the special forces brigade and ordered the distribution of about 2 thousand machine guns to the participants of the pro-government rally.
May 5, 1992 By decree of President Nabiyev, a state of emergency was declared, which included a ban on all political parties and rallies, and a curfew was introduced in the capital. The Presidential Guard attempted to disperse the pickets that were preventing government supporters from Kulyab from traveling to Dushanbe, resulting in dead and wounded people.
In response, the opposition occupied the airport, railway station and the presidential palace, capturing trophies: 200 machine guns and 3 armored personnel carriers.
The formation of self-defense units began in residential neighborhoods.
May 10 protesters on Shokhidon Square were called on to go to the National Security Committee building, where the president was allegedly hiding, and demand that he meet with the people. A column of protesters, protected by an armored personnel carrier and with weapons, moved towards the KNB building, but upon approach was stopped by heavy fire (about 8 people were killed and 14 were wounded).
The opposition returned to Shokhidon Square, but at the right moment the provoked battle rallied it. After negotiations between the authorities and the rebels, which ended with the formation of the Government of National Reconciliation, in which the opposition received a third of the posts, the rally participants from Shokhidon Square, inspired by the victory, left for their native villages, and the center of gravity of the confrontation moved to the countryside and acquired a purely military character.
But the provocative statements of the “democrat” Shodmon Yusuf led to the fact that the departure of the Slavic population assumed unprecedented proportions: only by the end of May 1992, 20 thousand Russian-speaking residents fled from Tajikistan, fearing for their lives. Under the cover of revolutionary events, criminal elements killed police officers, seized weapons, and destroyed police archives and file cabinets.
Dushanbe. February 1990.
Also in May 1992, Islamists, under the leadership of one of the leaders of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan in the Leninabad region, Kuraishikhon Ibragimov, tried to establish control over the city of Khojent, but were defeated and were forced to hide from the wrath of the crowd in mosques. A session of the Leninabad Regional Council adopted a resolution on the transfer of all enterprises and state farms in the region under its jurisdiction, which only intensified the growth of separatist sentiments in the richer north of the republic.
Tajik aluminum smelter
In Kulyab and Kurgan-Tube, clashes between armed groups of supporters of President Rakhmon Nabiyev and Islamists have become more frequent. The involvement of family and clan groups in the civil war served as an explosive mechanism for another traditional method of regulating inter-clan relations - the custom of blood feud.
The death of some relatives forced those who remained with arms in their hands to take the side of one of the two warring parties. On the southern border, regular and increasingly large-scale attempts to cross the Tajik-Afghan border in order to acquire weapons began. Afghan instructors often returned with the Islamists (according to the most conservative estimates, in the summer and autumn of 1992, 500-600 Afghan Mujahideen, mainly from the formations of ethnic Tajiks Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud, operated in Tajikistan).
By the summer of 1992, the Kulyab clan, unofficially headed by thief in law Sangak Safarov (Bobo Sangak), began to play an important role. He was born in 1928 in the town of Dangara near Kulyab, received his first sentence in 1951 for car theft, and in 1964 was convicted of murdering a Chechen. In the places of detention where Sangak spent a total of 23 years, he was “crowned”, thereby making him one of the first Tajik thieves in law (Safarov was known as a malicious disturber of order, and even started a riot among prisoners of the forced labor colony of the Sovetsky district of the Kulyab region, for which he was sentenced to another 6 years in prison).
Sangak "Bobo" Safarov, leader of the Popular Front of Tajikistan, won the war for the current leaders (his younger brother Hussein stands nearby)
Other Kulyab field commanders were close to Safarov - Kurbon Zardokov (formerly director of the Kulyab House of Culture), Rustam Abdurahimov, who died during Kendzhaev’s attempt to capture Dushanbe (former head of the culture department of the Kulyab regional executive committee), Salim Saidov (former head of the department of science and educational institutions of the Kulyab regional committee Communist Party of Tajikistan), Langari Langariev (senior lieutenant who worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kulyab region), Faizali Saidov, known by the nickname Executioner (worked at the Kurgan-Tube furniture plant). In the summer of 1992, not without the participation of Safarov’s people, many relatives of the first deputy chairman of the Islamic Renaissance Party, Davlyat Usmon, who lived in the Kurgan-Tube region, were massacred. Safarov also lobbied for a large-scale amnesty in Tajikistan, after which many criminals released from prison joined his armed forces.
Pamir Highlanders 1990
Supporters of Bobo Sangak staged an armed uprising in their native Kulyab, and on June 28, 1992, full-scale clashes began between Islamist detachments and the forces of Kulyab residents who called themselves “Reds.” At the end of July, at a meeting in Khorog, the terms of a truce between the warring parties were worked out and a ceasefire was announced throughout Tajikistan, but Sangak Safarov and Shodmon Yusuf refused to lay down their arms.
The flow of refugees, including Uzbeks, Tatars and Russians, has increased from the Kulyab and Kurgan-Tube regions. On August 24, 1992, Islamists killed an influential Leninabad resident, Prosecutor General of Tajikistan Narullo Khuvaidulloev (during his funeral, spontaneous protest rallies arose, at which young people demanded to burn mosques).
Prosecutor General of Tajikistan Narullo Khuvaidulloev (killed in 1990)
August 31 a group of young people from the organization “Youth of the City of Dushanbe”, together with refugees from the Kurgan-Tube and Kulyab regions who fled the terror of Safarov’s people, blocked the exits from the presidential palace and demanded a meeting with the president, who managed to take refuge in the location of the 201st division. The “youth” who seized the residence from among the members of Dushanbe groups began to take hostages, mainly people from the Leninabad and Kulyab regions (in response to these events in the Leninabad region, the creation of a “National Guard” of 2 thousand people was announced).
At the beginning of September 1992, Nabiyev’s agony reached its peak, having lost the support not only of the Cabinet of Ministers and Parliament, but also of his native Leninabad clan, which, in order to maintain its positions, was ready to sacrifice the odious president and change political figures. In Kurgan-Tyube, which was in the hands of the Kulyab residents, during a speech by Sangak Safarov in front of the regional executive committee, armed detachments of Islamists and “democrats” surrounded the protesters and opened fire. After they captured the city with the support of armored vehicles, a massacre began in Kurgan-Tube, including in the outlying village of Urgut, where Uzbeks lived - people from Samarkand (thousands of people poured under the protection of the 191st regiment into the neighboring village named Lomonosov, and a few days later they were taken to Kulyab).
At the same time, fierce battles between Islamists and Kulob residents took place throughout the Vakhsh Valley (mercenaries from the Caucasus and Afghanistan, as well as Arab instructors, fought on the side of the Islamists; on the side of the Kulob residents were a significant number of criminal elements released from the prisons of Kulob and Kurgan-Tube). A large reward was announced for the head of the commander of the 201st division, General Mukhridin Ashurov, who allegedly helped the Kulob residents.
photo of General Mukhridin Ashurov(stolen from Google, which cleans and deletes everything!)
September 7, 1992 year at the Dushanbe airport, Nabiyev tried to fly to Khujand, but was stopped by a crowd consisting mainly of criminal elements, and soon signed a letter of resignation. Power in the country passed to Islamists and “democrats” from Gorno-Badakhshan and Garm (some Islamist detachments in the Tursunzade region were even financed by Leninabad resident Makhkamov, who thus took revenge for his removal in 1991). In turn, on the basis of the Kulyab-Gissar coalition, which was supported by the northerners of Khojent, the Popular Front of Tajikistan was created, which declared its goal to restore the “constitutional order.”
The combat detachments of the front were actually led by thief in law Safarov, who tried to develop an offensive against Dushanbe from the Nurek hydroelectric power station area (in Kurgan-Tube, the field commander Langari Langariev was at the head of the Kulyab detachments).
The “vagrants” were opposed by simple conscripts - border guards of the 12th outpost...
Results of the Civil War
In the same September 1992, Abdumalik Abdulladzhanov, the head of the state grain concern Non, was appointed acting prime minister, which symbolized the return of the Khojent residents to power.
September 25 Islamists attacked the village named after. Lomonosov in the suburbs of Kurgan-Tube and, pushing back the officers of the 191st regiment, carried out a massacre among the refugees. During their offensive, the commander of the special group of the 201st Motorized Rifle Division, Mahmud Khudoiberdyev, arbitrarily withdrew tanks from the park and sent them to help supporters of Sangak Safarov, which turned the situation around and allowed Langariev’s troops to capture Kurgan-Tube on September 27.
In Dushanbe, criminal lawlessness also continued, warehouses were robbed en masse, cars were stolen. By October 1992, losses on both sides amounted to 15-20 thousand killed and several tens of thousands wounded (mostly civilians), hundreds of thousands of residents became refugees: almost all people from Uzbekistan and Northern Tajikistan left the south of the country; in addition, about 90 thousand so-called Russian-speaking residents (Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, Jews and others) left the republic. Industry was practically paralyzed, and agriculture was significantly destroyed.
The “Democrats” and the “Rastokhez” movement, which blocked with the Islamic Renaissance Party, lost their authority among the people and practically disintegrated. The head of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tajikistan, Turadzhonzoda, was also discredited, the kaziyat lost a significant part of its adherents, and in a number of places that came under the control of opponents of the Islamists, the activities of the clergy virtually ceased.
The national self-awareness of the Tajiks faded into the background, supplanted by regional self-awareness, but the Pamir peoples significantly united.
In October 1992 Kendzhaev’s troops invaded Dushanbe, but the forces of the Islamic-democratic coalition were able to repulse this attack, in which the armed formations from the Shakhmansur region played a decisive role (after the expulsion of Kendzhaev, the “youth” from Shakhmansur staged a “showdown” in the Vodyanka region: they burned the house of Rauf Saliev and killed several mafiosi, including one of the authorities nicknamed Sher; Rauf Saliev and Yakub Salimov, who supported Kendzhaev, were forced to flee the city). In early November 1992, Safarov's fellow countryman Emomali Rakhmonov, who had previously been a simple director of a state farm, with the support of the Popular Front, was elected chairman of the executive committee of the Kulyab Regional Council.
At the same time, Safarov’s supporters executed the chairman of the local regional executive committee, Kadriddin Aslonov, in the central square of Kurgan-Tube, hanging him on the monument to Lenin (in 1990-1991, this native of Garm was the chairman of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan, in September 1991 he became the acting president of the country ).
Aslonov was the last chairman of the Supreme Council of the Tajik SSR
Monument to Lenin with a "long arm"
The overthrown chairman of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan, Aslonov, who became acting leader in September 1991, was hanged on it. O. President of the country...
Map of the country Tajikistan
From November 16 to December 2, 1992, a “conciliatory” session of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan was held in the suburbs of Khujand, which accepted the resignation of Nabiev and elected the Kulyab resident Rakhmonov as its chairman (also by the decision of the session, Maksud Ikramov was released from prison and returned to the post of mayor of Dushanbe, who in the summer of 1993 year I had to flee to Moscow). The composition of the government chosen at the session reflected both the new balance of power and the fact that mafia structures had come to power. The Khojent and Kulyab clans, who agreed among themselves, with tacit support from Uzbekistan, Russia and, partly, Kyrgyzstan, equipped and rearmed the forces of the Popular Front, the main combat contingent of which were Uzbeks (both from Tajikistan and from the neighboring republic), as well as Tajiks from Kulyab . On December 6, the front formations attacked Dushanbe and four days later, the detachments of Safarali Kendzhaev and Yakub Salimov entered the city with fighting, along with whom Emomali Rakhmonov and members of his government arrived. In Dushanbe, the extermination of the Karategins and Pamirs, as well as local Islamists, began (for example, residents of Kazikhon, Ispechak and Ovul of Karategin origin were almost completely slaughtered, and dozens of police and KNB officers from among the mountaineers were killed). The surviving detachments of “democrats” and Islamists were driven to the east of the country, where a native of Garm, Said Abdullo Nuri, who had previously been convicted of drug possession, created the United Tajik Opposition on the basis of the Islamic Renaissance Party (Nuri soon emigrated to the Afghan Talukan, from where he led the Islamists). One of the leaders of the “youth” of Dushanbe, Dzhumakhon Buydokov, who headed the People’s Democratic Army (NDA), which relied on the Dushanbe neighborhood paramilitary formations, although he was at enmity with Sangak Safarov, did not resist the Popular Front detachments and calmly let them into Dushanbe (later the detachments The NDA ended up in the Romit Gorge of the Vakhdat region - one of the strongholds of the Islamic-democratic opposition forces, where they stubbornly resisted the forces of the Popular Front). After Dushanbe was occupied by the Popular Front, Yakub Salimov received the post of Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, and Rauf Saliev became the head of the republican traffic police.
In January-February 1993 Almost all the leaders of the opposition parties and movements in the Leninabad region were arrested, including those who held moderate positions (for example, at the end of January 1993, one of the leaders of the Islamic-democratic opposition in the north of the country, the chairman of the Matcha district organization of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, Saidsho Akramov, was arrested , whose Seyid family descended from the governors of the Bukhara emir). During the same period, the main fighting moved east of the capital, to Karategin (from Romit to Garm) and Darvaz (to the Tavildary area). Uzbek aviation actively participated in these operations, and Colonel Alexander Shishlyannikov, who had previously served in the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan, was appointed to the post of Minister of Defense of Tajikistan.
February 22 a group of Popular Front militants numbering 119 people flew by helicopter to Garm, the capital of Karategin, where they were completely destroyed by the opposition. Massive ethnic cleansing continued in Gissar, especially in villages bordering Uzbekistan.
At the end of March 1993 Sangak Safarov and his former associate, field commander and leader of the Uzbek Lokais Faizali Zaripov (Saidov) died under mysterious circumstances in the Bokhtar region, south of the city of Kurgan-Tube (according to one version, as a result of a quarrel and a shootout that broke out behind it, according to another - due to the fact that Safarov’s presence in politics began to weigh heavily on his protégé, especially after the armed suppression of the main opposition forces). Chairman of the Supreme Council Emomali Rakhmonov and Prime Minister of the country Abdumalik Abdulladzhanov attended Bobo Sangak's funeral. After the death of Safarov, the main levers of power ended up with Rakhmonov and his fellow countrymen from Kulob, who gradually pushed their former allies from Leninabad and Uzbeks out of financial flows.
Since the beginning of April 1993 The penetration of combat groups into the southern regions from the territory of Afghanistan began, where over 100 thousand Tajik refugees were concentrated in eight camps. The first attack was carried out by a detachment of Mullah Abdurakhim, a native of Kulyab and a longtime rival of the official head of the regional Muslim administration, Haydar Sharifov. At the end of April, a new large opposition detachment broke through the border, and Abdurakhim’s detachment occupied a significant part of the Shuroabad district of the Kulyab region. At the end of June 1993, fierce battles continued for several days in the Rogun area (armored vehicles of the 201st division took part in them, which were opposed by a detachment of field commander Rizvon).
Tajik-Afghan border on the Pyanj River
On the night of July 12-13, 1993 a detachment of militants numbering more than 200 people broke into the territory of Tajikistan in the area of the 12th outpost of the Moscow border detachment. As a result of the fierce battle, 22 border guards were killed, as well as several servicemen of the 201st division and employees of the National Security Committee of Tajikistan. The operation was planned by the commander of the 55th Afghan Infantry Division, Kazi Kabir, and the direct leadership of the militants was carried out by the field commander of the Afghan Mujahideen, Kori Hamidullo (the militants of Shodmon Yusuf and the then unknown Khattab also participated in the breakthrough).
The fighting intensified in the Tavildara area, where government forces were confronted by Abdulgafur's detachment; opposition forces also controlled Rogun and Obigarm. The road from Dushanbe to the Karategin valley was blocked by the detachments of Nozim and Ismat.
Starting from the end of July 1993, the activity of government forces in the Pamir direction intensified, mainly in the Tavildara region (here the struggle unfolded over the highway leading through the Khaburabot pass to Khorog, which was motivated by the need to transport food to Badakhshan). At the same time, almost continuous pressure on Russian border guards continued from opposition groups based in Afghanistan (in addition to weapons and ammunition, they massively transported drugs through Pyanj), and a guerrilla war broke out in the vicinity of Dushanbe.
August 3, 1993 government troops, with the support of aviation, launched a massive attack on the forces of the Badakhshans and opposition forces, as a result of which several villages of the Pamir region along the banks of the Pyanj were destroyed and dozens of civilians were killed. On August 6, the bombing of villages continued, and soon government troops gained a foothold in the Darvaz region.
Sangak "Bobo" Safarov, leader of the Popular Front of Tajikistan (to his right is his younger brother Hussein, another relative is behind him)
On the same day, in Garm, an armed clash occurred between the Karategins and Uzbeks, who served in the government forces of Tajikistan and tried to rape local women (eight Uzbeks and a local Tajik were killed, several Popular Front fighters were injured). The Uzbeks called for help from the Tursunzade region, which arrived in time on August 8, and as a result of fierce firefights, in which the Garm residents united against the Uzbeks with the Kulob residents, more than forty militants were killed.
At the end of August 1993 under the pretext of protecting the territory of the Leninabad region from armed Islamists, by decision of the local authorities, two bridges over the Yagnob and Zeravshan rivers were blown up on the highway connecting Dushanbe with Khojent through the Gissar, Zeravshan and Turkestan ranges (the explosion operation was personally led by the head of the regional department of the National Security Committee, Ergali Kurbanov, military commissar and one of the deputy chairmen of the Leninabad Regional Executive Committee). Thus, the process of real separation of the Leninabad region from the south of Tajikistan continued to deepen.
photo from the summer of 1991, I don’t remember the names - just an illustration :)
By the fall of 1993, almost 780 thousand refugees had accumulated outside of Tajikistan, including about 145 thousand people in Russia, 634 thousand in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. In early September, the former speaker of the parliament of Tajikistan Kendzhaev spoke out against the dominance of his own former Kulob allies, and especially against their unauthorized seizure of apartments in Dushanbe. The struggle within the ruling coalition, which intensified in Tajikistan, ended at the end of the year with the victory of the Kulob residents, for whom this was the last opportunity to maintain a unified statehood throughout Tajikistan, with obvious attempts by the Khojent residents to either regain their leadership positions in the country, or to declare their not only economic, but also political independence. The session of the Leninabad Regional Council, at which Abdujalil Khamidov intended to raise the issue of restoring the post of president in the republic and declaring the Leninabad region a free economic zone, ended in complete failure. The people of Kulyab, instantly reacting to the situation, landed an armed force in Khujand and forcefully forced the people of Khujand to abandon their separatist intentions and take part in the work of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan in Dushanbe. As a result of these events, the Prime Minister of Tajikistan, Abdumalik Abdulladzhanov, was forced to resign, and was replaced by another Khojentian, Abdujalil Samadov. Thus, the brewing crisis was stopped by maintaining the status quo that had emerged at the end of 1992 in the distribution of levers of power.
In January-February 1994 The situation in Dushanbe worsened significantly, where skirmishes often broke out between warring clans and factions. In addition, an attempt was made in the city on the life of the new Prosecutor General of the Republic, Mamanazar Salikhov, who, with his demands to disarm, “crossed the road” both to mafia structures and to former detachments of the Popular Front, especially from the western Tursunzade, Gissar and Shakhrinav districts. Salikhov declared these “self-defense units” outlawed, to which the leader of one of them, the chairman of the Tursunzade district executive committee, Ibod Boimatov, stated that his group, which at one time constituted one of the units of the Popular Front, did not receive weapons from the authorities and did not intend to hand them over.
The criminal lawlessness in the republic is also evidenced by the fact that since the beginning of the bloody events, more than a thousand law enforcement officers have been killed, and over 2.5 thousand of them have left the republic. Shelling continued, including with heavy artillery and rockets, at border guard posts; Major clashes even occurred between pro-government groups. Disagreements began within these forces not only on a regional, but also on an interethnic basis (for example, on February 19, violent skirmishes broke out near Dushanbe between Kulyab police officers and Lokay Uzbeks, and in the Jilikul region - between Kungrad Uzbeks and immigrants from the Kulyab region) .
By the spring of 1994 the balance of power in the country was as follows: the collective peacekeeping forces of the CIS (25 thousand people) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan (20 thousand) were opposed by the armed underground in Dushanbe (4.5 thousand fighters), the former Kulyab region (about 2 thousand), Kurgan -Tyube (3.5 thousand) and Gorno-Badakhshan (7 thousand).
Map of the division of Tajikistan between organized crime groups (1991-1993)
On the night of March 10-11, 1994 In the same year, Deputy Prime Minister Moensho Nazarshoev, a Pamiri by birth, who was soon to lead the government delegation at the negotiations with the opposition planned in Moscow, was killed at his home. In July 1994, having failed to achieve results in regular negotiations with the authorities, the opposition launched large-scale military operations that covered the Tavildara Valley, Darvaz, and some areas of Karategin and Pripyanjya.
Having suffered a number of setbacks and suffered significant losses in manpower and equipment, the Rakhmonov government was forced to sign an agreement on a temporary ceasefire on the Islamists’ terms. During the ongoing election campaign in the republic, which was accompanied by forceful pressure on opponents and the population, a detachment of Kulyab militants numbering up to 300 people, led by the Minister of Internal Affairs and former Dushanbe racketeer Salimov, was sent to Khojent; the heads of the district departments of internal affairs of Ura-Tyube and Ganchi were replaced by people loyal to Rakhmonov; a media campaign has been launched to discredit Rakhmonov’s main opponent, Abdulladzhanov; an “agreement” was concluded with the former chairman of the Leninabad regional executive committee Khamidov, a relative of Abdulladzhanov, to whom the post of director of the flour mill was returned for supporting Rakhmonov; A campaign has been launched to intimidate the population with armed groups in order to encourage citizens to vote for Rakhmonov. And he gradually began to gain points by using nationalist rhetoric, in contrast to his main opponent Abdullajanov, who constantly referred to friendship with Islam Karimov, which, against the backdrop of the continued participation of Uzbekistan’s aviation in the civil war, was very unpopular. The Democratic Party of Tajikistan left the united opposition, whose leadership agreed to an agreement with official Dushanbe.
Emomali Rahmon. 3rd President of Tajikistan
November 6, 1994 Presidential elections were held in Tajikistan, which, as expected, Rakhmonov won.
On December 9, 1994, in Khorog (Mountainous Badakhshan), the leader of the local drug mafia, Abdulamon Ayembekov (Lyosha Gorbun), who had enormous influence in the region, was blown up in his car (even the Kyrgyz battalion from the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces took up positions in the Pamirs only when it received then personal permission from Lyosha the Hunchback). The murder of the leader of the Badakhshan drug mafia greatly weakened the role of the Khorog-Osh transit channel and strengthened the position of the Kulyab residents in drug trafficking, as well as the authorities Salamsho Muhabbatov (Salam), Sadirov and Dzhunaidullo, who controlled Vanch and Darvaz.
At the beginning of April 1995 The situation in Badakhshan again significantly worsened, namely in the Darvaz region, where in October 1994 Dushanbe sent a battalion of government troops. This battalion decided to carry out a “cleansing” in the zone controlled by the Badakhshan “self-defense unit” under the command of the field commander Zainiddin. He repulsed the attack and launched a counterattack, as a result of which the battalion was forced to retreat with heavy losses (24 Tajik and Kazakh soldiers were killed in these battles).
October 22, 1995 government forces attempted to forcefully recapture in Tavildara 57 military personnel captured by the opposition on October 14 (over 500 soldiers and 10 armored vehicles, supported by aviation, took part in the operation; government forces were opposed by about one and a half thousand militants).
November 8 and 9 military aircraft bombed the positions of opposition units in the neighboring Garm region; on November 9, a landing force of 50 people was dropped in Tavildara, which the Islamists almost completely destroyed, and 10th of November about 100 soldiers and officers surrendered to the commander of one of the opposition groups, Mirzokhuja Nizomov (former head of the police department of the Tajikabad region).
November 21 government forces again launched a large-scale attack on Tavildara (and this time among them there was not a single native of the Kulyab regions, which in previous years were particularly cruel to the Pamiris and Karategins).
The situation in Tajikistan was significantly complicated by increasingly aggravated contradictions within the ruling coalition, which often resulted in armed “showdowns” between former allies. The situation is especially tense in the Khatlon region, where September 17, 1995 real battles broke out between the 1st and 11th brigades of the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan, formed in 1993 on the basis of the Popular Front units.
The 1st brigade under the command of Makhmud Khudoiberdyev, with the support of tanks and artillery, managed to break into the territory of the military camp of the 11th brigade, after which the commander of the latter, Usman Murchaev, fled to one of the surrounding villages. During these clashes in Kurgan-Tyube, according to official data, 28 military personnel were killed, according to unofficial data - at least 200 people (including crime boss and former field commander Izzat Kuganov, who, under the “roof” of the 11th brigade, controlled the export of cotton, an oil depot and meat processing plant).
The Tajik authorities were forced to decide to disband both brigades and create one on their basis. The extremely difficult crime situation has forced the authorities to intensify the fight against crime. At the end of October - beginning of November 1995, a large-scale operation was carried out to “clean up” the banking system, as a result of which 30 employees of Tajik commercial banks and corrupt officials of state financial departments were arrested. Also, during the anti-crime campaign, a “cleansing” was carried out within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as a result of which over 20 police officers were arrested and dozens were fired.
At the beginning of November 1995 the leader of a large gang, one of the former commanders of the Popular Front, a deputy of the Tajik parliament Khudzhi Karimov (Khudzhi Commander) was arrested, during a search in whose house 10 cars (including two foreign cars and 5 new KamAZs), a huge amount of weapons and ammunition were seized , as well as 300 million Russian rubles and 800 thousand dollars.
In January 1996 Khudoiberdyev seized power in Kurgan-Tube and moved his motorized rifle brigade to the capital, demanding the resignation of high-ranking government officials. The next day, there was a rebellion in the city of Tursunzade (Gissar Valley), where ex-mayor Boymatov seized power. Rakhmonov was forced to make concessions to the rebels and in February 1996, dismiss the most odious people from his circle - First Deputy Prime Minister Makhmadsaid Ubaidulloev, the head of the presidential apparatus Izatullo Khayoev and the head of the Khatlon region Abdujalol Salimov, as well as appoint Leninabad resident Yahya as prime minister of the country Azimova. In response, Khudoiberdyev's rebel brigade returned to the barracks and surrendered their weapons and heavy armored vehicles.
In January 1997 Khudoiberdyev's brigade knocked out the group of local authority Kadyr Abdullaev from Tursunzade, where the Tajik Aluminum Plant is located, for which the local authorities decided to pay the commander a share of the sale of the plant's products.
April 30, 1997 During the solemn ceremony celebrating the 65th anniversary of the local university in Khujand, a fragmentation grenade was exploded, as a result of which President Rakhmonov was wounded
June 27, 1997, against the background of the growing power of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a truce was concluded between the Rakhmonov government and the United Tajik Opposition. Islamists joined state structures, including parliament, government and army, which ended the civil war.
But not everyone from Rakhmonov’s entourage was happy with the truce, realizing that it would push them even further away from the levers of political influence and sources of income (in particular, income from the drug business). In July 1997, deprived clan leaders and field commanders (mainly from Kurgan-Tube and Gissar) created the so-called “Defense Council of the Southern and Central Regions of Tajikistan,” headed by Colonel Mahmud Khudoiberdyev.
A little more about it:
Makhmud Turonovich Khudoiberdyev
Tajik military leader, field commander, participant in the Civil War in Tajikistan, colonel. Led three anti-government revolts.
Repeatedly with unexpected attacks he blocked and occupied Dushanbe, Khojent, Kurgan-Tube, organized conspiracies and rebellions. Many legends were told about him, and it is often difficult to extract reliable information from reports about him.
In fact, his position was independent; he did not support either the opposition or the Popular Front. After the national truce of 1997, he abandoned agreements with the Rakhmonov government and fought against the government of reconciliation, while relying on the Afghan mujahideen.
Thanks to the relative openness of the border with Afghanistan and the presence of large Tajik communities in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Russia, local territorial mafia clans have quite successfully restored and strengthened their positions in the sphere of heroin and opium transportation. As for the stability of power, here things were somewhat different.
In August 1997, clashes began in Dushanbe between soldiers of the special forces brigade under the command of Sukhrob Kasymov and the head of the Customs Committee of the republic, Yakub Salimov. Former field commander Kasymov accused his recent comrade-in-arms in the Popular Front, Salimov, of involvement in the murder of his uncle, but in fact the conflict between them was connected with the struggle for control over drug trafficking routes (former racketeer and Minister of Internal Affairs Yakub Salimov, considered one of the richest and influential people of the country, controlled several armed groups, more than a hundred shops and almost the entire cotton business of the country).
Against the backdrop of these events, Makhmud Khudoiberdyev again rebelled and moved his brigade from Kurgan-Tube on a campaign against the capital, entering into battle with the presidential guard under the command of Gaffor (Gaffur) Mirzoev at the Fakhrabad pass, 25 km south of Dushanbe. At the same time, “self-defense units” loyal to Khudoiberdyev from Gissar moved from the west to Dushanbe (Khudoiberdyev had common business projects with Yakub Salimov, who lobbied his interests in the government and ensured the unhindered export of products from the Tajik aluminum plant, which Khudoiberdyev controlled).
After several days of fighting, government troops of Tajikistan managed to gain the upper hand over the allied formations of Salimov and Khudoiberdyev - forces loyal to Rakhmonov cleared Dushanbe of Salimov’s fighters, dealt with the “self-defense units” west of the capital, took control of the Gissar and Shakhrinav districts, captured Tursunzade and those controlled by Khudoiberdyev aluminum plant, and soon they defeated the troops in his domain - Kurgan-Tube.
In November 1998 Mahmud Khudoiberdyev, with the tacit support of Uzbekistan, where one of the leaders of the Khojents and ex-Prime Minister Abdumalik Abdullajanov emigrated, again raised a rebellion, this time in the Leninabad region, but a brigade under the command of Sukhrob Kasymov ousted the rebels from Khujand and the Ayni region and defeated them completely (on the side Government forces were even supported by the formations of the United Tajik Opposition, which included militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, after which Rakhmonov allowed Juma Namangani to dig in in Tajikistan).
Khudoiberdyev with the remnants of his detachment managed to hide on the territory of Uzbekistan, where his traces were lost; in the fall of 2001, rumors appeared that he had died, but the circumstances of his death are quite contradictory, as are the data on his death themselves.
After the suppression of Khudoiberdiyev’s rebellion, Emomali Rakhmonov significantly strengthened his position and, without prejudice, began to get rid of former comrades and influential oppositionists.
In February 2000 As a result of a car explosion, the mayor of Dushanbe, Makhmadsaid Ubaidulloev, was wounded and the country's Deputy Minister of State Security, Shansulo Dzhabirov, was killed.
Also in February, Nazira Gulyamova, the younger sister of Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic Negina Sharopova, was kidnapped in the capital.
In September 2000 border guards of the Moscow border detachment entered into battle with militants of the Afghan drug trafficker Dumulu Abdulhai, who once again attempted to cross the Tajik-Afghan border with a large cargo of drugs (as a result of the clash, 7 smugglers were killed and several hundred kilograms of raw opium were seized)
In December 2000 In the Gafurovsky district, the former head of the Leninabad region, Abdujalil Khamidov, and 11 members of his clan were detained (they were charged with attempts on the lives of Makhmadsaid Ubaidulloev and Mirzo Zieev; in June 2002, Khamidov was sentenced to 18 years in prison).
By 2001 a number of influential people were involved in drug trafficking, including the son of Nuritdin Rakhmonov, brother of the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov, head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and former field commander Mirzo Zieev (Jaga), commander of the Presidential Guard and also former field commander Gaffor Mirzoev (Sedoy), mayor of Dushanbe Mahmadsaid Ubaydulloev, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Khabib Sanginov, as well as senior officials of the General Staff and Air Force of the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan, ambassadors and trade representatives of the republic. The main transit hubs for drug traffickers were the civil and military airports of Dushanbe, Khujand, Kurgan-Tube, Kulyab, Parkhar and Khorog (in 2000 due to overproduction in Afghanistan, the price of a kilogram of heroin dropped to $200-300 in border areas, although back in 1999 it was estimated at 1 thousand dollars).
Under the leadership of Mirzo Zieev, who controlled the Tavildara district, there were more than 2 thousand fighters, and people from his inner circle held the posts of first deputy minister of defense, first deputy head of the Border Protection Committee, first deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, chairman of the National Bank of the Republic and chairman of the Committee on Precious Metals and stones. The commander of the Presidential Guard, Gaffor Mirzoev (Sedoy), controlled a number of profitable enterprises (in January 2001, the casino owned by his brother was closed) and oversaw the confiscation of weapons from the population, which he often then resold.
The commander of the special forces brigade of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (about 1.5 thousand soldiers), Sukhrob Kasymov, who had quarreled with Rakhmonov, strengthened himself in the Varzob Gorge, but continued to control several banks, a cement plant in Dushanbe and a trading network (he was at enmity with the group of Mirzoev and Ubaydulloev and was even suspected of an assassination attempt the latter).
In open opposition to the Rakhmonov regime were field commanders Abdullo Rakhimov (Mullo Abdullo), who controlled the Darband region, and Rakhmon Sanginov (Hitler), who controlled the Leninsky region. The field commanders of the Kafirnigan zone Namoz, Abduvosit, Mukhtor and Mahmadi were guided by the first Deputy Prime Minister Khoja Akbar Turajonzoda, and the 25th battalion based in Dushanbe, entirely consisting of former fighters of the Islamic opposition, was guided by Said Abdullo Nuri. The Chairman of the Customs Committee of the Republic, Mirzo Nizomov, actually controlled the Rasht region, the Chairman of the Oil and Gas Committee, Salamsho Muhabbatov, controlled the Darvaz region, the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, Mahmadruzi Iskandarov, controlled the Jirgatal region, and the former commanders of the Popular Front, the Cholov brothers, controlled Kulyab. Almost all of the “appanage princelings” were involved in the drug business and “protection” of commercial structures, due to which they maintained their armed forces.
In April 2001 in Dushanbe, the first deputy minister of internal affairs of Tajikistan, police major general Khabib Sanginov, who was in charge of the eastern region of the republic, was shot (in the past he was one of the influential leaders of the democratic wing of the United Tajik opposition, from the moment of his appointment to the post of deputy minister he took an active part in expulsion from country of militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and was also considered a major figure in the drug business in Tajikistan)
First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, Major General of Police Khabib Sanginov
In June 2001 Bandit leader Rakhmon Sanginov (Hitler) captured 7 policemen in the vicinity of Dushanbe, demanding the release of 8 of his supporters who had been detained over the past three months. In response, during a large-scale law enforcement operation codenamed “Lightning,” Sanginov’s closest associate, the leader of a large gang, Mansur Muakkalov, as well as 36 of his militants were eliminated (another 66 gang members were captured). Previously, Muakkalov was a field commander of the United Tajik Opposition, after the truce he served in the Armed Forces of Tajikistan, but was fired for disobeying orders, after which he and his people engaged in terror against government officials, robberies and hostage-taking
In July 2001 in Dushanbe, at the entrance of his house, Karim Yuldashev, State Advisor to the President of Tajikistan on International Affairs, was shot dead
In August 2001, during a large-scale operation carried out in the Rudaki region, the former field commander of the United Tajik Opposition, the leader of a well-known criminal group, Rakhmon Sanginov (Hitler) and more than 20 of his henchmen, including two siblings (about 100 more) were killed The gang members were detained; during the armed clash, nine police officers were killed, and civilians were also injured).
Until the summer of 2001, the gangster groups of Rakhmon Sanginov, Mansur Muakkalov and Safar Tagaev virtually completely controlled the eastern outskirts of Dushanbe, Leninsky and Kofarnikhonsky districts. In addition to the mass arrests of militants, their main strongholds were also liquidated, several hundred small arms were seized, including machine guns, machine guns, grenade launchers and mortars, as well as a cannon, an anti-aircraft gun and hundreds of kilograms of explosives.
In September 2001 in Dushanbe, the Minister of Culture of Tajikistan, Abdurakhim Rakhimov, was shot dead as he was leaving his house, and a few days later in the capital at the stadium, during the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the independence of Tajikistan, an explosion occurred, as a result of which an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was killed
Minister of Culture of Tajikistan Abdurakhim Rakhimov, 54 years old
In January 2002 Under pressure from Russia, President Rakhmonov dismissed the full board of Tajik border guards - the chairman of the State Border Protection Committee and his five deputies, and also recommended the resignation of the commanders of all Tajik border brigades, accusing them of involvement in drug trafficking.
At the end of May 2003 in Moscow, at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of Tajikistan, Yakub Salimov was detained, who was extradited to Tajikistan in February 2004 and sentenced to 15 years in high security prison in April 2005 (in 1993-1995, Salimov headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, in 1995-1996 he served the post of Ambassador of Tajikistan to Turkey, whose authorities, due to Salimov’s criminal past, did not accept his credentials for more than six months)
In August 2003 in Moscow, at the request of the Tajik Prosecutor General's Office, former Minister of Trade Khabibulo Nasrulloev was detained, whom the Tajik authorities accused of involvement in illegal armed groups (previously Nasrulloev actively participated in the activities of the Popular Front, but in the 1994 presidential elections he publicly supported Rakhmonov's rival, Abdumalik Abdullajonov). In January 2004, in Khujand, during an inspection at a traffic police post, 24 kg of raw opium was found in the personal car of the head of the department of the Drug Control Agency for the Sughd region, Lieutenant Colonel Kholik Zakirov (during the search, another 6 kg of heroin was found in his house)
In August 2004 The director of the Drug Control Agency under the President of Tajikistan, Lieutenant General Gaffor Mirzoev, was detained on suspicion of committing a number of crimes. He was accused of murdering the head of the Shakhrinav district police department Mirzo Abduloev on April 8, 1998 (according to the investigation, 10 days later Mirzoev’s subordinates, on his orders, killed the head of the same district), as well as organizing an armed rebellion, attempting a violent seizure of power, illegal commercial activities, tax evasion, storage of large quantities of weapons and ammunition, illegal privatization of land, unauthorized construction of a house in the city of Kulob. Before his appointment as head of the agency, Mirzoev headed the Presidential and National Guards (1995-2004), was the chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Tajikistan, and even earlier took an active part in hostilities during the civil war on the side of the Popular Front (in August 2006, Mirzoev, who became disliked by the president , was sentenced to life imprisonment)
Director of the Drug Control Agency under the President of Tajikistan, Lieutenant General Gaffor Mirzoev (sentenced to life)
In November 2004 In Moscow, one of the most influential Tajik drug lords, Ibragim Safarov, known in criminal circles as Boim, Bai, Rais or Minister, was detained (at the same time, operatives detained his accomplices in the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Samara and several other Russian cities).
The court sentenced the leader of the drug cartel, 35-year-old Ibragim Safarov, to 19 years in prison to serve in a maximum security colony. The rest of his accomplices received sentences from 5 to 15 years. (photo from 2006)
Ibragim Safarov's father was an employee of the Tajik Ministry of Internal Affairs, and he himself served for some time in the brigade of the Internal Troops. Already in the late 90s, Safarov, thanks to his patron and business partner, who was the head of the Dushanbe City Internal Affairs Directorate, became a criminal authority and organized the supply of large quantities of drugs to Russia (about one and a half tons of heroin per quarter), and also organized an extensive network of wholesale distributors in Central Russia and Siberia. With the money he received from drug trafficking, Safarov built or acquired restaurants, shops, and mansions in Dushanbe (in particular, he owned almost the entire village of Kalinin, near Dushanbe, which was dubbed the “Tajik Rublevka”).
According to Interpol, in the summer of 2004, high-ranking officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan were present at the birthday celebration of Ibragim Safarov, ten of whom he presented a VAZ-2107 car to.
In December 2004 In Moscow, at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of Tajikistan, the leader of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, Mahmadruzi Iskandarov, who was on the interstate wanted list, was detained (he was accused of large-scale thefts when he was director of Tajikistan and of involvement in terrorist activities).
Summer 2005 Russian border guards were removed from the Afghan-Tajik border, after which the transit of drugs through the Pyanj River increased significantly (largely thanks to corruption among the Tajik border guards: to take the position of head of the border outpost in the Pyanj and Ishkashim border detachments stationed on the border with Afghanistan, you need it was necessary to pay the authorities about 200 thousand dollars).
In September 2005, the Drug Enforcement Agency(these departments are now called very symbolically!) under the President of Tajikistan, using his own sources of information, he got on the trail of the major drug lord Akbarali Juraboev, who had been supplying drugs outside the republic for a long time. The DCA opened a criminal case and convinced the Prosecutor General's Office to issue a warrant for his arrest, however, six months later, the anti-drug agency unexpectedly asked to close this criminal case for lack of evidence and judicial prospects. The Prosecutor General's Office of Tajikistan decided that there was a basis for an investigation and entrusted the case to investigators from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but a week later it was again refused for the same reasons. Further, employees of the Prosecutor General's Office took up the investigation and nevertheless established that in September 2005, Juraboev sent five BelAZ vehicles to Russian territory, one of which was equipped with a cache containing about 330 kg of drugs, including 255 kg of heroin, 66 kg of raw opium and 8 kg of hashish. In total, three citizens of Russia and the same number of citizens of Tajikistan were involved in this drug trafficking chain (all of them, with the exception of Juraboev, were detained and convicted in Russia in October 2006).
In January 2006 in Dushanbe, near his home, the head of the military institute of the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan, Major General Khakimsho Khafizov, was shot dead
At the end of May 2008 During a large-scale operation by Tajikistan's special services in Kulyab, an influential local drug lord Sukhrob Langariev and eight of his accomplices were detained, including his nephew Azam Langariev, the son of the late Sangak Safarov Nurmahmad Safarov and two Afghans. During the storming of the house, for which even artillery and armored vehicles were used, a special forces officer and two civilians were killed, another special services officer and a bystander were injured (among the ruins of the house, security forces discovered large stocks of weapons and drugs). Sukhrob's older brother, Langari Langariev, was one of the most famous field commanders of the Popular Front during the civil war and served as chief of staff of the National Guard (in October 1992, he died in a hospital in Khujand from his injuries). Another brother, Faizali Langariev, worked as an intelligence officer in the Department of Correctional Labor Institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic, then, following the example of his older brother, he fought in the ranks of the Popular Front, and at the time of Sukhrob’s arrest he rose to the rank of major general and served as head of the Combat Training Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan . Another brother, Bakhtiyor Langariev, worked as the head of the Dushanbe Regional Organized Crime Control Department (which did not prevent Sukhrob Langariev from being on the republican wanted list for robbery since 2002). In April 2009, the Supreme Court of Tajikistan, which met in strict secrecy on the territory of the KNB special detention center, sentenced Sukhrob Langariev and seven of his henchmen to life imprisonment (the remaining 11 defendants who were part of his drug cartel received, depending on the severity of the crimes they committed, from 6 to 21 years of imprisonment)
At the beginning of February 2008 in Garm (Rasht Valley), the commander of the riot police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, Colonel Oleg Zakharchenko, was killed, and four of his soldiers were seriously injured. The attack on the riot police was organized by the head of the Regional Department for Combating Organized Crime of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Rasht region, Mirzokhuja Akhmadov, who during the civil war was a field commander of the United Tajik Opposition and feared arrest for past crimes
In June 2008 Mass unrest took place in Gorno-Badakhshan, supported by the Tajik opposition. Also in June 2008, in the Moscow region, Rustam Khukumov, the son of the chairman of the Tajik Railway Amonullo Khukumov and the brother of President Rakhmonov’s son-in-law, and drug courier Farkhod Avgonov were detained in the Moscow region for possession of a large quantity of heroin. (at the end of 2011, the Moscow Regional Court acquitted Khukumov)
In June 2009, when detained in his home was shot former Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan Mahmadnazar Salikhov, who recently feuded with the clan of President Rakhmonov (Salikhov served as minister for more than two years and was dismissed without explanation in January 2009; during the civil war he served as prosecutor general).
Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan Mahmadnazar Salikhov
In July 2009 During a special operation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Committee of National Security, carried out in the village of Akhba, Tavildara region, against the armed group of Negmat Azizov, an influential Karategin citizen, former Minister of Emergency Situations of Tajikistan, Lieutenant General Mirzo Zieev, was killed.
During the civil war, he was a prominent field commander of the opposition fighting the Popular Front; after the 1997 truce, he became the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and held this position until November 2006, when he was dismissed without explanation. After his dismissal, Zieev joined an anti-government group and planned to seize local authorities and the department of internal affairs of the Tavildara region
At the end of July 2009, During the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Tajikistan, in the parking lot near Dushanbe’s largest clothing market “Korvon”, located on the southern outskirts of the city, unknown persons blew up the car of the head of the police department of the capital’s Firdousi district (Lieutenant Colonel Said Davudov himself, who was a local police officer at the market, escaped minor injuries). In addition, a few days before this incident, bombs exploded near the Dushanbe International Airport and the Tajikistan Hotel.
In September 2009 the head of the criminal investigation department of the Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Isfara, police lieutenant colonel Saidumar Saidov, was killed
At the beginning of September 2010 in Khujand, on the territory of the RUBOP Department of Internal Affairs of the Sughd region, a car with two suicide bombers broke into the yard exploded, as a result of which the right wing of the administrative building was destroyed, two department employees were killed, and another 28 people were injured (according to one version, the terrorist attack was intended to interfere with investigative measures in the case of the murder of the director of the Isfara market, Homidjon Karimov, who was close to the criminal circles of the region; according to other sources, Islamists were behind the explosion)
A few days later, an explosion rocked the Dusti nightclub in the southern part of Dushanbe.
Two people were detained “hot on the heels” in the case of a night explosion in the Dusti entertainment center in Dushanbe, which occurred on Monday night, a representative of the press center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs told RIA Novosti.
“The detainees are suspected of committing an explosion that occurred around midnight in Dusti,” he said.
As a result of the explosion, seven people were injured, two of whom were hospitalized in serious condition. The agency's interlocutor clarified that at the time of the explosion there were about 40 people in the discotheque.
According to preliminary data, an improvised explosive device was used.
In many ways, the influence of organized crime is facilitated by the catastrophic situation with the economy of Tajikistan, and as a consequence of this, the plight of the majority of the population. By 2010, about 60% of the country’s residents were below the poverty line, the unemployment rate reached 40%, and from 650 thousand to 1 million people (mostly to Russia) went to work for seasonal jobs per year.
Remittances from Tajik workers from Russia were equal to two of the country's annual budgets and reached $1 billion a year, and half of this money went to Tajikistan illegally (in 2011, Tajik workers remitted about $3 billion to their homeland).
The largest criminal industry in Tajikistan is the drug business in all its manifestations - from the transportation of drugs from Afghanistan and distribution within the country to the organization of traffic through neighboring countries (Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) to Russia and Kazakhstan. A huge number of people are involved in this business, from farmers growing opium poppies, producers (“chemists”), couriers (“mules”), militants ensuring the safety and security of the cargo, and ending with financiers “laundering” money, security forces and officials , “protectors” of this entire business, and, of course, the leaders of drug cartels.
As of early 2010 on the Afghan side of the border, the drug business was controlled by the following leaders - “producers” Abdul Wali (laboratories in Takhar province), Madad Jan and Nur Rahman (laboratories in Nangarhar province), Haji Rahimullah and Haji Rahman (laboratories in Helmand province), Maftun (laboratories in Kabul ), “traders”, also known as distributors and intermediaries, Haji Hikmatullah (Takhar), Gol Bashar and Ali Haidar (both from Kabul), “carriers” Haji Hakim and Abdul Jabbar (oversaw the transportation of drugs to Tajikistan).
On the Tajik side, the drug business was controlled by the authorities Abdul Vozuz, Qurbon, Hamed, Navid and Abdulahak (organization of drug trafficking routes from Afghanistan to Tajikistan), Taj Mohammad and Nematulla (recipients and wholesalers of drugs), Aminulla, Mirzamin and Abdulmatin (retail drug sales in Tajikistan) , Najib, Shavgiz and Jamal (organization of drug trafficking routes from Tajikistan to Russia), Wahed and Khan-Zaman (organization of drug trafficking routes from Tajikistan to Kazakhstan).
In 2010, about 550 tons of Afghan heroin went to the Russian market and more than 700 tons to Europe
In the sphere of sales, Tajik drug dealers rely either on numerous fellow countrymen who have settled in Russia, or on Roma cartels (both local and consisting of Central Asian Roma who have moved to Russia).
Another drug smuggling channel to Russia is supervised by corrupt businessmen from among Russian military personnel stationed on the territory of Tajikistan - officers of the 201st division and advisers seconded to the Tajik Ministry of Defense (previously, Russian border guards were actively involved in drug trafficking). Wholesale shipments of drugs are transported using military transport aircraft, private and departmental airlines, and in sealed railway cars.
Almost all drug trafficking groups operating in the country are associated with the leadership of law enforcement agencies - the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Committee for National Security and the army.
In January 2012 law enforcement officers managed to detain three high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who worked for the drug mafia - Faridun Umarov, head of the department for combating drug trafficking of the Farkhor district of the Khatlon region and the younger brother of the first deputy chairman of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) of Tajikistan Mansur Umarov, Major Zafar Mirzoev, chief Department for Combating Illegal Drug Trafficking of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, and Tokhirkhon Sherov, who headed the department for combating illicit drug trafficking of the capital's Internal Affairs Directorate (all three officers protected drug dealers, in particular, for large bribes they were relieved of criminal liability, and Faridun Umarov and completely controlled drug trafficking in the regions of the Khatlon region bordering Afghanistan, as well as in Dushanbe, for which he created a gang, which included police and intelligence officers). Initially, drug lord Rustam Khaitov, well-known in criminal circles, was arrested (operatives detained him with 42 kilograms of drugs), who told investigators that part of the illegal cargo belonged to Faridun Umarov.
Along with traditional types of crimes, such as the shadow economy, drug trafficking, extortion and prostitution, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, new trends in crime appeared in the country: girls began to be taken from Tajikistan for sale to brothels in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Afghanistan, and the United Arab Emirates. and Israel, and sell men to Kazakhstan and Russia for forced labor.
The market for illegal emigrants was actively replenished with people kidnapped or sold for debt. Another profitable area of activity for Tajik groups and corrupt security forces has become the kidnapping for ransom of wealthy fellow countrymen in Russia or their relatives in Tajikistan.
* In general, Tajikistan is a peaceful and warm country... (c)
A source in the Main Directorate of Execution of Sentences of the Ministry of Justice of Tajikistan told Radio Ozodi on June 1 that fifteen years in prison Yakuba Salimova ends on June 23rd and the next day he will already be with his family. This source said that “after the last amnesty in 2014, which was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of Tajikistan, Yakub Salimov still had 1 year and 3 months left to serve his sentence.”
Meanwhile, relatives of Yakub Salimov told Radio Ozodi that they met with him last week and Salimov himself warned that he would be released in the middle of this month. Abubakr, the eldest son of Yakub Salimov told Radio Ozodi on June 1 that at the meeting he had with his father, he looked pleased and said that this was their last meeting in prison. Yakub Salimov told his son that employees of the Department of Execution of Punishments told him this news and thereby made him happy.
Abubakr Salimov, eldest son of Yakub Salimov. Photo: Radio Ozodi
Rakhmatillo Zoirov, who at one time was the lawyer of Yakub Salimov, in a telephone conversation with Ozodi from Moscow, expressed hope that his former client would be released at the time set by the Ministry of Justice.
At the beginning of this year, the Minister of Justice of Tajikistan Rustami Shokhmurod, whose agency oversees prisons, said that the prison term of Yakub Salimov, one of the former Popular Front commanders, has not been extended, and he will be released after completing his sentence. The Minister of Justice told reporters that “the length of the sentence is set by the court. No one has the right to keep him in prison after the end of his sentence. As soon as his sentence ends, he will be released.”
Before this, rumors were spread that the authorities allegedly extended his prison term.
The former Minister of Internal Affairs and Ambassador of Tajikistan to Turkey in 2003 was detained in Russia at the request of the Tajik side and, after extradition to Dushanbe, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Pursuant to the 2012 amnesty law, his sentence was reduced by two years.
He was one of the influential commanders of the Popular Front, who, after Emomali Rahmon came to power at the 16th session of the Tajik parliament, was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs. In 1997, Yakub Salimov saved President Rakhmon from an assassination attempt in the city of Khujand and was among the most influential post-war persons in Tajikistan.
From 1992 to 1997 he was the Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, and after that he was appointed ambassador to Turkey. In 2004, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of treason. He was also stripped of all state awards and military ranks.
In recent years, Yakub Salimov's relatives have constantly expressed concern about his well-being and asked for his early release. Last May, on the eve of his 59th birthday, they sent a letter to President Emomali Rahmon asking him to pardon him before the end of his sentence. His son Abubakr said that his father needed serious treatment and it was possible that his health problems would worsen further before his release.
The other day Yakub Salimov turned 59 years old. His star on the political horizon lit up in the fall of 1992 at the 16th session of the Supreme Council. It was then, at the age of 34, that he became Minister of the Interior. How it happened and how this star set, read in our material.
The appointment of Yakub Salimov as minister of one of the key structures was a bold decision, but at the same time unexpected for the entire society, because he was not a professional policeman and had not worked a single day in this system.
It should be emphasized that he made his breathtaking career during the Civil War. His journey from field commander of the Popular Front to minister took less than six months.
Before this appointment, he twice became the hero of criminal chronicles: the first time - in 1989, when the media declared him a racketeer, the second time - in February 1990, as one of the organizers of mass pogroms.
By the way, then almost all the key persons of the legal, or constitutional, government were appointed personally by the chairman of the Popular Front, Sangak Safarov, or with his approval. He also served a considerable amount of time in his time.
Radical fracture
Yakub Salimov entered politics against his will. Before the outbreak of the civil war, he was officially engaged in business.
When rallies began in the two central squares of Dushanbe - Ozodi and Shakhidon - in the spring of 1992, he organized a meeting in which more than 100 people took part; those gathered agreed that they would make every effort to prevent bloodshed.
Salimov and his close friends set up a tent between Shakhidon and Ozodi and declared that if suddenly the protesters of one square went against the other, they would walk over their corpses.
Probably, some forces did not like his peacekeeping activities. As a result, grenades were thrown at his house. By pure chance, none of his family members were injured.
At the end of June 1992, Salimov, a native of the Vakhsh region who grew up in Dushanbe, returned home, where a few days earlier hundreds of residents who did not support the opposition were killed in purges.
The Vashkh tragedy was one of the most brutal and bloody operations in the history of the civil war. As a result of that massacre, tens of thousands fled their homes and became forced refugees.
After his return, Yakub Salimov headed the local self-defense unit. Took on the role of head of the sanitary and funeral team. He conducted numerous negotiations with opposition leaders to bring refugees home and stop the bloodshed. But the task proved difficult as the opposition believed that complete victory over the government supporters was just around the corner.
The situation in the region sharply worsened in the fall of 1992, when, following the Dushanbe scenario, supporters of the government and the opposition gathered in the two central squares of Kurgan-Tube.
It was not possible to avoid an armed conflict. In just a matter of days, Kurgan-Tube became a dead city. The opposition, using scorched earth tactics, burned Urgut mahalla.
Sangak Safarov and his supporters began to retreat. It seemed that the opposition was about to defeat the armed formations of the Popular Front. But the situation at the front changed radically on September 27, 1992.
On this day, a former officer of the Soviet army, an employee of the local military registration and enlistment office, senior lieutenant Makhmud Khudoiberdiev, withdrew tanks and armored personnel carriers from the territory of the 191st regiment stationed in Kurgan-Tube and struck at the armed opposition forces.
And then the triumphal march of the Popular Front began. Soon a number of other districts of the Kurgan-Tube region were liberated.
By the time the 16th session was convened in mid-November 1992, Yakub Salimov was one of the most authoritative field commanders of the Popular Front.
Minister involuntarily
But why exactly did Yakub Salimov become Minister of Internal Affairs? After all, there were many professionals, high-ranking officers, even generals in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The reason was that the chairman of the Popular Front announced a vote of no confidence in them.
The proposal to appoint Salimov as minister came personally from Sangak Safarov. As eyewitnesses say, when the leader of the NFT offered Salimov this post, the future minister categorically refused.
He said that he did not fight to become a minister, and pointed to several generals standing nearby. But Safarov, turning to them, said: if they had fulfilled their duty honestly, then the militants would not have dismissed President Nabiyev at gunpoint.
The last argument that convinced him was Safarov’s words that for the sake of the dead guys, everything must be done to bring the fight to the end. Salimov agreed on the condition that as soon as the armed formations of the People's Democratic Army were ousted, he would leave.
Thus, the new Minister of Internal Affairs created a special-purpose battalion, which on December 10, 1992 entered Dushanbe from three directions: from the north, south and east.
Near the Ministry of Internal Affairs building, the detachment led by Salimov was met with heavy fire. In the area of the 9th km, an armed attack was carried out on a convoy of a special purpose battalion.
On the evening of December 10, Yakub Salimov appeared on state television in camouflage uniform and announced that the government elected at the 16th session in Khujand had entered Dushanbe.
In the following days, the armed formations retreated to the east. Contrary to the statements of the new authorities, the civil war in Tajikistan not only did not end, but began to gain momentum.
The main burden of the war fell on the shoulders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose number reached 27 thousand. The Ministry of Defense had not yet been formed at that time.
Yakub Salimov resigned in August 1995, by which time this was already the fourth resignation letter...
And at the beginning of 1996, clouds began to gather over his head. When Colonel Khudoiberdiev rebelled, rumors began to spread that Salimov, by then appointed ambassador to Turkey, was secretly supporting the rebels.
Having learned about these rumors, the former Minister of Internal Affairs declared at an emergency session of parliament that he opposed the military coup. “I am a former Minister of the Interior. Stand up and tell me what crimes I committed or what I stole,” he said.
Extradition conditions
At the beginning of 1997, Salimov became chairman of the Customs Committee. In April of the same year, he saved the president when there was an assassination attempt on the head of state in Khujand.
On the eve of the signing of the peace treaty, Yakub Salimov was almost the only former field commander who agreed to be with the president during this ceremony.
But in August 1997, Colonel Khudoiberdiev once again rebelled.
During these days, Salimov's house was attacked from three sides by government forces and tanks of the 201st division. The Chairman of the Customs Committee urgently left Tajikistan.
In November 1998, when a rebel colonel broke into the Sughd region, the commander of the presidential guard, General Gaffor Mirzoev, speaking at an emergency session of parliament, said that Salimov was also among the conspirators. This statement was denied by Security Minister Saidamir Zukhurov.
On June 21, during a document check at the traffic police station on Leningradsky Prospekt in Moscow, Yakub Salimov was arrested and placed in Lefortovo. Until this time, he lived in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
There were rumors in Tajikistan at that time that if the former minister was extradited home, he would be released under an amnesty. Probably for this reason, he repeatedly appealed to Russian President Putin and Prosecutor General Ustinov with a request to extradite him to Tajikistan.
On the eve of the extradition of the former minister, the Prosecutor General's Office of Tajikistan reported to the Interfax agency that an agreement between Moscow and Dushanbe on the extradition of Salimov was reached during negotiations that lasted six months - from the summer of 2003.
Russia extradited Salimov under guarantees that the death penalty would not be applied against him, the Interfax news agency reported.
Thus, the Tajik Prosecutor General’s Office guaranteed that Salimov would not be sentenced to capital punishment. Moreover, since May 2004, a moratorium was introduced in Tajikistan not only on the execution, but also on the imposition of death sentences.
At the end of February 2004, the former minister was extradited to Tajikistan and placed in a pre-trial detention center. Contrary to expectations and numerous appeals from the creative intelligentsia, relatives and supporters of the ex-minister to Emomali Rakhmonov, indicating that all the charges brought against him were unfounded, on April 24, 2005, Yakub Salimov was sentenced to 15 years in prison to be served in a maximum security colony.
The Supreme Court found him guilty of treason in the form of conspiracy to seize power, banditry, and abuse of official position. Also, by decision of the Supreme Court of Tajikistan, he was deprived of all military ranks and state awards.
After serving 13 years (2 years would have been removed under an amnesty) in a pre-trial detention center (apparently they were afraid to transfer him to prison), one of the most influential ministers of constitutional power in the first half of the 90s was released in June 2016.
According to documents and materials of the criminal case, the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan Yakub Salimov should be released on June 21. Salimov’s sister, Shakhri Temurova, reported this to AP.
According to her, Yakub Salimov himself has already asked for his clothes to be prepared. “These are the hardest days of his life. He himself can’t wait to be released as soon as possible,” says Shakhri Temurova.
Meanwhile, as the sister of the ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs says, relatives expected that Salimov’s release would happen a little earlier - on New Year’s Eve or on his birthday, but this did not happen. “According to the documents, he really should be released on June 21. But this is only our personal count so far; we have not yet received official notifications from the relevant authorities,” noted Shahri Temurova.
But the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Main Directorate for the Execution of Criminal Sentences of the Ministry of Justice of Tajikistan could not name the exact date of Yakub Salimov’s release.
A source in the GUIUN told AP that it is impossible to report the exact date of Salimov’s release from prison due to the fact that there are some discrepancies regarding the dates in the case materials. “There are discrepancies in dates, so we cannot say the exact date. However, he will definitely be released this summer,” the source noted.
The Prosecutor General's Office referred to the fact that the release of prisoners is the prerogative of the Ministry of Justice.
Let us recall that the head of the Supreme Court of Tajikistan, Shermuhammad Shokhiyon, during a meeting with journalists in January, said that the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tajikistan did not change its verdict of April 24, 2005 against the ex-Minister of Internal Affairs of the republic, Yakub Salimov.
At the same time, Shokhiyon then stated that he did not know exactly when the term of serving the sentence of Y. Salimov, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison, would end. He also recommended that journalists contact the Ministry of Justice.
Let us recall that on January 30 last year, during a press conference at the Prosecutor General's Office of the country, they announced that the disgraced Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan Yakub Salimov, who was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Tajikistan on April 24, 2005 to 15 years in prison, taking into account the application of the amnesty, remained to serve in prison almost a year. Then the Prosecutor General's Office assumed that Salimov would be released in mid-December 2015.
Charges were brought against Salimov back in 1997. He was accused of attempting to organize an armed coup and left the country. But in 2003 he was arrested in Russia and soon extradited to Dushanbe. The closed trial of Yakub Salimov lasted five months.
On April 24, 2005, the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, Yakub Salimov, was sentenced to 15 years in prison to be served in a maximum security colony. The Supreme Court of the Republic found Yakub Salimov guilty of treason in the form of conspiracy to seize power, banditry, and abuse of official position. By a court decision, he was deprived of all military ranks and state awards.
During the years of civil confrontation (1992–1993), Yakub Salimov was the commander of one of the detachments of the Popular Front. In December 1993, he was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, and two years later he was released from this post and sent as ambassador to Turkey, where he worked for more than a year. After returning to Dushanbe and until 1997, Salimov headed the Customs Committee of the republic.
In 2011, as part of an amnesty in honor of the 20th anniversary of Tajikistan's independence, Salimov's prison sentence was reduced by two years.
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Photo: Asia PlusThe other day Yakub Salimov turned 59 years old. His star on the political horizon lit up in the fall of 1992 at the 16th session of the Supreme Council. It was then, at the age of 34, that he became Minister of the Interior. How it happened and how this star set, read in our material.
The appointment of Yakub Salimov as minister of one of the key structures was a bold decision, but at the same time unexpected for the entire society, because he was not a professional policeman and had not worked a single day in this system.
It should be emphasized that he made his breathtaking career during the Civil War. His journey from field commander of the Popular Front to minister took less than six months.
Before this appointment, he twice became the hero of criminal chronicles: the first time - in 1989, when the media declared him a racketeer, the second time - in February 1990, as one of the organizers of mass pogroms.
By the way, then almost all the key persons of the legal, or constitutional, government were appointed personally by the chairman of the Popular Front, Sangak Safarov, or with his approval. He also served a considerable amount of time in his time.
Radical fracture
Yakub Salimov entered politics against his will. Before the outbreak of the civil war, he was officially engaged in business.
When rallies began in the two central squares of Dushanbe - Ozodi and Shakhidon - in the spring of 1992, he organized a meeting in which more than 100 people took part; those gathered agreed that they would make every effort to prevent bloodshed.
Salimov and his close friends set up a tent between Shakhidon and Ozodi and declared that if suddenly the protesters of one square went against the other, they would walk over their corpses.
Probably, some forces did not like his peacekeeping activities. As a result, grenades were thrown at his house. By pure chance, none of his family members were injured.
At the end of June 1992, Salimov, a native of the Vakhsh region who grew up in Dushanbe, returned home, where a few days earlier hundreds of residents who did not support the opposition were killed in purges.
The Vashkh tragedy was one of the most brutal and bloody operations in the history of the civil war. As a result of that massacre, tens of thousands fled their homes and became forced refugees.
After his return, Yakub Salimov headed the local self-defense unit. Took on the role of head of the sanitary and funeral team. He conducted numerous negotiations with opposition leaders to bring refugees home and stop the bloodshed. But the task proved difficult as the opposition believed that complete victory over the government supporters was just around the corner.
The situation in the region sharply worsened in the fall of 1992, when, following the Dushanbe scenario, supporters of the government and the opposition gathered in the two central squares of Kurgan-Tube.
It was not possible to avoid an armed conflict. In just a matter of days, Kurgan-Tube became a dead city. The opposition, using scorched earth tactics, burned Urgut mahalla.
Sangak Safarov and his supporters began to retreat. It seemed that the opposition was about to defeat the armed formations of the Popular Front. But the situation at the front changed radically on September 27, 1992.
On this day, a former officer of the Soviet army, an employee of the local military registration and enlistment office, senior lieutenant Makhmud Khudoiberdiev, withdrew tanks and armored personnel carriers from the territory of the 191st regiment stationed in Kurgan-Tube and struck at the armed opposition forces.
And then the triumphal march of the Popular Front began. Soon a number of other districts of the Kurgan-Tube region were liberated.
By the time the 16th session was convened in mid-November 1992, Yakub Salimov was one of the most authoritative field commanders of the Popular Front.
Minister involuntarily
But why exactly did Yakub Salimov become Minister of Internal Affairs? After all, there were many professionals, high-ranking officers, even generals in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The reason was that the chairman of the Popular Front announced a vote of no confidence in them.
The proposal to appoint Salimov as minister came personally from Sangak Safarov. As eyewitnesses say, when the leader of the NFT offered Salimov this post, the future minister categorically refused.
He said that he did not fight to become a minister, and pointed to several generals standing nearby. But Safarov, turning to them, said: if they had fulfilled their duty honestly, then the militants would not have dismissed President Nabiyev at gunpoint.
The last argument that convinced him was Safarov’s words that for the sake of the dead guys, everything must be done to bring the fight to the end. Salimov agreed on the condition that as soon as the armed formations of the People's Democratic Army were ousted, he would leave.
Thus, the new Minister of Internal Affairs created a special-purpose battalion, which on December 10, 1992 entered Dushanbe from three directions: from the north, south and east.
Near the Ministry of Internal Affairs building, the detachment led by Salimov was met with heavy fire. In the area of the 9th km, an armed attack was carried out on a convoy of a special purpose battalion.
On the evening of December 10, Yakub Salimov appeared on state television in camouflage uniform and announced that the government elected at the 16th session in Khujand had entered Dushanbe.
In the following days, the armed formations retreated to the east. Contrary to the statements of the new authorities, the civil war in Tajikistan not only did not end, but began to gain momentum.
The main burden of the war fell on the shoulders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose number reached 27 thousand. The Ministry of Defense had not yet been formed at that time.
Yakub Salimov resigned in August 1995, by which time this was already the fourth resignation letter...
And at the beginning of 1996, clouds began to gather over his head. When Colonel Khudoiberdiev rebelled, rumors began to spread that Salimov, by then appointed ambassador to Turkey, was secretly supporting the rebels.
Having learned about these rumors, the former Minister of Internal Affairs declared at an emergency session of parliament that he opposed the military coup. “I am a former Minister of the Interior. Stand up and tell me what crimes I committed or what I stole,” he said.
Extradition conditions
At the beginning of 1997, Salimov became chairman of the Customs Committee. In April of the same year, he saved the president when there was an assassination attempt on the head of state in Khujand.
On the eve of the signing of the peace treaty, Yakub Salimov was almost the only former field commander who agreed to be with the president during this ceremony.
But in August 1997, Colonel Khudoiberdiev once again rebelled.
During these days, Salimov's house was attacked from three sides by government forces and tanks of the 201st division. The Chairman of the Customs Committee urgently left Tajikistan.
In November 1998, when a rebel colonel broke into the Sughd region, the commander of the presidential guard, General Gaffor Mirzoev, speaking at an emergency session of parliament, said that Salimov was also among the conspirators. This statement was denied by Security Minister Saidamir Zukhurov.
On June 21, during a document check at the traffic police station on Leningradsky Prospekt in Moscow, Yakub Salimov was arrested and placed in Lefortovo. Until this time, he lived in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
There were rumors in Tajikistan at that time that if the former minister was extradited home, he would be released under an amnesty. Probably for this reason, he repeatedly appealed to Russian President Putin and Prosecutor General Ustinov with a request to extradite him to Tajikistan.
On the eve of the extradition of the former minister, the Prosecutor General's Office of Tajikistan reported to the Interfax agency that an agreement between Moscow and Dushanbe on the extradition of Salimov was reached during negotiations that lasted six months - from the summer of 2003.
“Russia extradited Salimov under guarantees that the death penalty would not be applied against him,” the Interfax news agency reported.
Thus, the Tajik Prosecutor General’s Office guaranteed that Salimov would not be sentenced to capital punishment. Moreover, since May 2004, a moratorium was introduced in Tajikistan not only on the execution, but also on the imposition of death sentences.
At the end of February 2004, the former minister was extradited to Tajikistan and placed in a pre-trial detention center. Contrary to expectations and numerous appeals from the creative intelligentsia, relatives and supporters of the ex-minister to Emomali Rakhmonov, indicating that all the charges brought against him were unfounded, on April 24, 2005, Yakub Salimov was sentenced to 15 years in prison to be served in a maximum security colony.
The Supreme Court found him guilty of treason in the form of conspiracy to seize power, banditry, and abuse of official position. Also, by decision of the Supreme Court of Tajikistan, he was deprived of all military ranks and state awards.
After serving 13 years (2 years would have been removed under an amnesty) in a pre-trial detention center (apparently they were afraid to transfer him to prison), one of the most influential ministers of constitutional power in the first half of the 90s was released in June 2016.
