First jihad/martyrdom bombing in Tajikistan in five years. The virgins were getting impatient. “Car bomber kills 2, wounds 25 police in Tajikistan,” by Roman Kozhevnikov for Reuters, September 3:
DUSHANBE (Reuters) – Suicide car bombers struck a police station in Tajikistan on Friday, officials said, killing two officers and wounding 25 in an attack authorities blamed on a militant group linked to al Qaeda.
Tajikistan’s first known suicide bombing in five years would deal a blow to the government of the ex-Soviet republic, where poverty pushes youth towards radical Islam and political rivalries still fester a decade after a civil war.
And yet study after study has shown that jihadists are generally wealthier and better educated than their peers. And if poverty pushes youth towards “radical Islam,” where are all those Haitian suicide bombers?
A sedan exploded after entering the courtyard of a regional police anti-organized crime unit headquarters in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second largest city, Interior Ministry chief of staff Tokhir Normatov said….
The Interior Ministry said the attack was likely carried out by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which aims to establish Islamic rule in ex-Soviet Central Asia and has fought alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
But longtime President Emomali Rakhmon’s government often blames the IMU for attacks, while his critics and rights groups accuse him of using the Islamist threat as an excuse to crack down on dissent in the nation of seven million….