Suicide Car Bomber Hits Tajik Police Station

KHUJAND, Tajikistan -- Officials say a suicide car-bomb attack at a police station in the northern Tajik city of Khujand has killed at least one policeman and injured some 25 other people.

It would appear to be the first suicide bombing in the Central Asian country.

Interior Ministry officials blamed the attack on elements with ties to the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), whose leadership purportedly has links to Al-Qaeda.

Interior Ministry spokesman Muhammadjon Nazriev told RFE/RL's Tajik Service that the vehicle was driven at high speed "into the gated compound of the Sughd regional police organized-crime division -- as the gate was closing after two police cars entered the complex -- and the car exploded."

Nazriev said authorities suspect the attack was carried out by two people.

He said a senior police lieutenant died in hospital as a result of injuries from the blast, and another police officer who tried to stop the car was likely to be the other victim.

Nazriev said the powerful explosion partially destroyed the police compound and that it also damaged several surrounding buildings, including a nearby hospital.

RFE/RL correspondents in Khujand said the area was cordoned off and that law-enforcement agencies were not allowing reporters near the compound.

They said police officers briefly detained local reporters who were taking photos, and confiscated their photo and video equipment.

Islamic Movement Blamed

The IMU found sanctuary in Tajikistan during the country's 1992-97 civil war as its leaders had close ties with the country's former Islamic opposition fighters.

In recent years, Tajik officials have blamed the IMU for a number of attacks in the country. They say the banned group was involved in the killings of several police officers in the northern town of Isfara in 2008 and 2009.

Authorities have also held the IMU responsible for the 2006 attack on Kairokum detention center, when attackers killed the head of the prison and set free two suspected members of the Islamic group being held there.

Today's incident comes two weeks after some 25 prisoners, including some with ties to the IMU, staged a dramatic jailbreak in Dushanbe.

A special commission led by the chief of Security Council Amirqul Azimov has been set up to investigate the Khujand attack, and Azimov himself has been sent to Khujand to oversee the probe.

Khujand is the second largest city in Tajikistan and the administrative center of the Sughd province. The city is located some 350 kilometers north of the capital, Dushanbe.