Tajik officer's defection to Daesh indicates repressive regime is supported by US

A US State Department official has confirmed that the senior Tajik police commander who was defected to Daesh was trained in America on five separate occasions.

Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, the head of the Tajikistan special forces unit known as Omon, claimed in a video released by Daesh that he had travelled to the US three times for counter-terrorism training. The private military firm Blackwater was also involved in his training.

“From 2003-2014 Colonel Khalimov participated in five counter-terrorism training courses in the United States and in Tajikistan, through the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program,” spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala told CNN.

Omon has been one of the key elements of US security co-operation with Tajikistan, which has focused on training and equipping the country’s special forces.

Yet, even before this alleged defection to Daesh, these training programmes were controversial. While the special forces are Tajikistan’s most capable units and are used to combat genuine security threats, they are also a key element of Presiden Emomali Rahmon’s repressive rule, and have been implicated in suppressing internal opposition.