At least 20 members of Turkmenistan’s security forces were killed in clashes in the capital Ashgabat Sept. 12, according to to media reports and diplomatic sources. Police battled “a religious group, possibly radical Islamists,” according to a diplomatic source quoted by Gundogar.org, a website maintained by Boris Shikhmuradov, founder of Turkmenistan’s opposition Popular Democratic Movement. “Witnesses said that 20 police were killed and their bodies were taken in secret to an Ashkhabad hospital.” Information is strictly controlled in the former Soviet republic, and state media did not report on the violence.
Ashgabat is reportedly under curfew, with armored personnel carriers patrolling the streets. Arkady Dubnov, a Moscow-based reporter for the Vremya Novostei newspaper, told AFP that sources in Ashgabat reported of “tanks and armored vehicles opening fire on a drinking water factory” where militants were hiding. The US embassy in Ashgabat warned Americans to stay away from the northern districts of the city. (AlJazeera, Sept. 14)
On Sept. 14, Turkmenistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement that “a criminal group involved in the illegal drug trade” had been “neutralized.” The ministry did not say whether there were any casualties, or if any traffickers had been detained. The statement made no reference to Islamist militants. (BBC, Sept. 14)
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There was no curphew in
There was no curphew in Ashgabat, and security situation is as has always been. There are no armed police or military patrolling the streets. Everything is calm and there are no changes from the way it was before the gang of drug dealers were stormed by special forces.
Who are you?
Are you in Ashgabat?
Did it happen or didn’t it?
Everything is calm and there are no changes from the way it was before the gang of drug dealers were stormed by special forces.
In this sentence anonymous is stating that the event did happen. But there is no curfew. Tons of news outlets are reporting this, but they are going with the Gundogar website. That is even shakey. So it is hard to say what actually happened, if anything happened at all.