‘Criminal leader’ killed in Tajikistan’s east

Dushanbe, Tajikistan: A rival of Tajikistan’s authoritarian government was killed in the ex-Soviet country’s restive east, police reported on Sunday, after protests sparked lethal clashes between state forces and local residents of the region bordering Afghanistan and China.

Mamadbokir Mamadbokirov was killed "as a result of internal clashes of criminal groups", according to an interior ministry statement carried by the state information agency Khovar, which described Mamadbokirov as the "leader of a criminal group" in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region.