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BISHKEK (AFP) - A border post on Kyrgystan's border with Tajikistan came under renewed fire for a second night running in the latest clash with Islamists, the defense ministry said on Thursday. "Rebels again made an unsuccessful attempt to invade the country on Wednesday evening via the Dzhyly-Suu border post, like the day before," said Bolot Imanaliyev, chief defense ministry spokesperson. Two groups of armed Islamists launched separate bids to break through to Kyrgyzstan from different directions in the remote Central Asian mountains but were forced to retreat back towards the Tajik border, said Imanaliyev. The Islamists came from the Yangi-Dovan mountain pass, which stretches from the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan into neighboring Tajikistan, he said. Three Islamist groups had attempted to surround the same frontier post on Tuesday evening. Military officials said the Islamists were attempting to break through to the nearby Tajik enclave of Voruk, inside Kyrgyzstan, in search of reinforcements, food and weapons. Imanaliyev said Kyrgyz helicopter gunships conducted morning mopping-up operations in the area of the latest fighting in a bid to hunt down the Islamists. Observers believe that the armed fighters, apparently from the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, wish to destabilize Central Asia and establish routes to traffic drugs from major opium producers in Afghanistan. But military sources say the Islamists wish to carve out an Islamic state in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley and overthrow President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, a state that has also suffered in the insurgency campaign. Fighting has been concentrated along the southern borders of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in isolated mountainous areas where their frontiers meet with a third former-Soviet Central Asian country, Tajikistan. The Islamists are believed to be based in Tajikistan and are suspected to have been harbored and trained by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, although both the Taliban and Tajikistan deny the charges. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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