BISHKEK (AFP) - Kyrgyz government troops clashed with some 50 Islamists on Wednesday who crossed into the country overnight via the border with Tajikistan to join some 40 Islamists already in the region.
Fierce battles are now raging between government troops and the Islamist forces near the Truro mountain pass five kilometers (three miles) from the Tajik border in Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz National Security Secretary Bolot Dzhanuzakov said.
One Kyrgyz soldier was killed in Tuesday's fighting, he added. Dzhanuzakov also confirmed that six German and six Russian mountaineers, as well as two guides, were freed on Tuesday after being abducted by the Islamic opposition forces on August 12th.
One
Islamist was captured during the operation to free the mountaineers who
were seized while climbing in the Pamir range and held in Kyrgyz
territory.
Kyrgyz security services learned that the mountaineering group, who had been in the mountains for around a week and a half, had been captured on August 12th. On Tuesday morning the security services discovered where they were being held.
The Islamists had not requested a ransom for the climbers and they were freed "almost without losses" to Kyrgyz forces and taken to Batken in southern Kyrgyzstan Tuesday evening.
The Germany embassy in Kyrgyzstan confirmed on Wednesday that a party of German climbers had been briefly abducted by a group of Islamists, although they were unable to give further details.
Dzhanuzakov said some 700 to 800 Islamists were massed at different points in Tajikistan ready to launch incursions into former Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
He said the Islamists, who are coordinated by Uzbek Islamic Mujahideen Djuma Namangani, wished to destabilize the volatile Central Asian region and set up drug trafficking routes.
Last August four Japanese geologists were kidnapped and held for two months in Kyrgyzstan.
