CSTO forces, Tajik reservists to jointly fight Taliban, IS militants

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) forces and the reservists in Tajik southern regions will jointly combat the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) militants, a Tajik expert said Monday.

The volatile situation in northern Afghanistan could negatively affect Tajikistan and Central Asia as a whole, Hudoberdi Holiqnazarov, director of Tajikistan's Center for Strategic Studies, told a press conference.

Holiqnazarov said a number of communities in the Afghan northern provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar have been taken by the Taliban.

"At the beginning of 2014, there were 800 Taliban militants in the Afghan northern provinces, but now the armed men have reached 8,000," Holiqnazarov said.

He said Afghanistan has also been infiltrated by IS militants. "The IS allocated 700 million U.S. dollars to create its arm in Afghanistan. These negative factors could change the situation in Tajikistan and Central Asia."

Holiqnazarov said the positive side of these events is that the Taliban do not recognize the IS group and clashes occur between them. "Let them beat each other, as they are our enemies."

Founded in 1992 within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the CSTO currently has six members -- Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan -- with Afghanistan and Serbia as observers. Endi