SUMMARY
The Republic of Tajikistan is a former Soviet republic that became independent in 1991 following the dissolution of the USSR. Tajikistan experienced high levels of violence during the 1990s while the period since 2000 saw lower levels of violence with the exception of a few outbursts of conflict. In the context of the civil war in 1992, the government of Tajikistan also used one-sided violence against civilians.
In addition to the conflict over government the Islamic State (IS) has established a foothold in the country since 2018, challenging the government in 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, in 2021, an interstate conflict broke out between the government of Kyrgyzstan and the government of Tajikistan along their contested border.
Since 1989, Tajikistan has experienced the interstate, intrastate, non-state, and one-sided categories of organized violence, as defined by the UCDP.
2025
Following the ceasefire reached between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in September 2022, the countries have continued to discuss border demarcation and prevention of resumed border provocations. In March 2025, the countries signed a final border agreement that largely resolved the delimitation of the border, with demarcation and implementation ongoing. No fatal events occurred during 2025.
A decade of intrastate conflict
The first instance of fatal organized violence in Tajikistan that was registered by the UCDP occurred in 1992, just after Tajikistan became an independent state following the dissolution of the USSR. The 1992 peak in fatalities was caused by activities in two different conflicts and by one-sided violence against civilians. The conflict that claimed most fatalities by far was the conflict over government that involved three different actors in 1992. The conflict began in May 1992, when a coalition of Islamist and Reformist opposition factions, that would later take the name UTO, took up arms against the government of Tajikistan, then led by President Rahmon Nabiev. Months of fighting ensued between the parties and during this time, a non-state conflict broke out between UTO and another rebel coalition; the pro-communist PFT. The non-state conflict between UTO and PFT would turn into a state-based one, as UTO ousted Nabiev in September 1992 and assumed governmental power. Fighting between this new government and PFT ultimately came to a close near the end of the year, when PFT assumed control of the government in an effort that combined military pressure and political maneuvering. Thus, Emomali Rahmon became the leader of the Tajik government, a position he still holds as of 2025. The conflict over government reached the threshold for war in 1992, and most of the fatalities were geographically concentrated to the capital Dushanbe. Only minor hotspots emerged elsewhere in the country, such as in the city of Qurghonteppa (which has since been renamed Bokhtar) south of Dushanbe. During the year, the UCDP also registered one-sided violence against civilians perpetrated by PFT, as well as by the Tajik government. The one-sided violence perpetrated by the government occurred both when the government was UTO-controlled, and when it was PFT-controlled.
After the ascendancy of Emomali Rahmon to power in Tajikistan, the conflict over government remained active through 1998, exceeding the threshold for war two more times in 1993 and 1996. Most of the fatalities from this time resulted from fighting between the Tajik government and UTO, geographically encompassing most of the country except for its north. In June 1997, a peace- and power-sharing agreement between UTO and the government resulted in most of the rebel coalition ceasing to fight, although parts of the group continued battling the government until the following year.
As the UTO-government peace deal was crafted, Colonel Mahmud Khudoberdiev left the government military and used forces under his command to wage an insurgency against the state between 1997 and 1999. He sought to expand the scope of the power-sharing agreement forged by the government and UTO to also include his faction based in Khujand (formerly known as Leninabad) in the north of Tajikistan. Despite making initial gains and holding the city of Khujand, as well as the Dushanbe airport for some time, the forces of Khudoberdiev had been defeated by 1999. Government forces—which now included UTO forces following force integration per the peace agreement—claimed victory, and 1999 would mark the first year since 1992 with no active conflict in Tajikistan.
Minor breaks in a trend of calm
In the new millennium, organized violence has not returned to Tajikistan in its previous form. Instead, only minor violent episodes have punctured a trend of near-complete absence of organized violence in the country.
In 2000, the conflict over government once again became active for one year, this time due to fighting between the Tajik government and the forces of Mullo Abdullo. Abdullo, a warlord and former UTO field commander, and his forces waged a short insurgency which led to fatalities in the town of Komsomolabad, located east of Dushanbe.
Following the insurgency of 2000, Abdullo and his forces returned to fighting once again in 2010 to wage a similar insurgency against the government in the same area. The Abdullo forces’ resumed fighting combined with an insurgency led by the international jihadist group IMU would keep the governmental conflict active until 2011.
The conflict between the IMU and the Tajik government began in 2005 and reached a peak in 2010 before diminishing and eventually ceasing completely in 2014. Most fatalities resulting from IMU’s fight with the governmental forces during these years occurred in the Rasht valley east of the capital Dushanbe. The group did not accomplish its goals of establishing a Central Asian Islamic Caliphate, and later shifted its efforts to Pakistan and Afghanistan, for many years fighting under the Afghan Taleban. In 2015, most IMU fighters joined the newly announced Islamic State – Khorasan Province.
The emergence of the Islamic State – Khorasan
During 2014, reports emerged of the presence of the Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan and Pakistan. By the end of the year, some local commanders had pledged allegiance (bay’ah) to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. On 10 January 2015, six former TTP (Tehrik-I Taliban Pakistan) leaders released a video in which they again pledged allegiance to IS and nominated Hafiz Khan Saeed as the leader of the group. Two weeks later, on 26 January, IS accepted the bay’ah. In the official audio statement “Say, Die in your rage!”, the IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani announced the expansion of the Islamic State, creating Wilayah Khorasan (Khorasan Province). Khorasan refers to an historical region covering parts of modern-day "Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other nearby lands", including Tajikistan. IS recruited most of its members from the Afghan Taleban movement and other groups operating in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In August 2015, the originally Uzbek group IMU, which had previously been active in Tajikistan, and had been fighting under the Taleban in Afghanistan for many years, pledged allegiance to IS and announced that they were now members of the Khorasan province. In May 2015, commander of the Tajik special police forces Gulmurod Salimovich Khalimov travelled to Syria and defected to IS, and hundreds, potentially thousands, of young Tajik men have joined IS since. The government of Tajikistan has been accused of suppressing Islam, harshly cracking down on practicing Muslims, and IS has positioned itself as the main alternative for violent Islamists in Central Asia. While IS has carried out only a few attacks inside Tajikistan, IS members from Tajikistan have been involved in many large-scale terrorist attacks in other countries, including the January 2024 attack in Kerman, Iran, and the March 2024 attack on a concert hall outside Moscow, Russia. In contrast to the IS groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, members in Tajikistan have had closer connections to the IS central command in Syria and Iraq. The first recorded attack carried out by IS in Tajikistan occurred on 29 July 2018, when IS militants rammed a group of foreign tourists cycling in southern Tajikistan. After hitting them with the car, they used knives and firearms to kill four civilians. This is recorded as the first attack of one-sided violence carried out by IS in Tajikistan. The following day, the Tajik security forces found and killed three of the perpetrators in a nearby village, marking the first battle-related deaths in fighting between the Government of Tajikistan and IS. During 2018 and 2019, IS staged several prison riots in Tajikistan, making the conflict with the government of Tajikistan active.
Interstate conflict
In April 2021, an interstate conflict broke out between the government of Kyrgyzstan and the government of Tajikistan along their contested border. There had been high tensions in the border regions in the years leading up to the conflict, mainly due to the disputed border delineation, uneven access to natural resources, and Tajik exclaves landlocked within Kyrgyzstan but only a limited number of fatal incidents. Fatalities occurred on both sides of the border, many of them were civilian. In addition to this episode, a brief border clash in July between the parties had a fatal outcome, but was not followed by more such violence that year.
2022 marked the second year of the conflict and begun with only a few fatal incidents until a sharp escalation occurred in September. Between 14 and 17 September, almost 150 people were killed, 87 of which were recorded on the Tajik side of the border. This made September the deadliest month in Tajikistan since the 1990s. After the September clashes, the parties agreed on a ceasefire which has largely been upheld, despite several accusations of shelling by the border. Later that same month, an agreement to withdraw troops from the border and continued dialogue was signed by authorities on both sides. In March 2025, the countries signed a final border agreement that largely resolved the delimitation of the border, with demarcation and implementation ongoing.
Pre-1989 conflicts
An independent Tajik state did not exist prior to 1991. From the earliest year covered by UCDP data, 1946, up until 1989, the territory that today constitutes Tajikistan was a part of the USSR under the name ‘Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic’. Thus, see the Russia (Soviet Union) country page for further information.
