TAJIK OFFICIAL KILLED IN PROBABLE GANGLAND INFIGHTING.

Tajik official Alikul Imomnazarov died on July 31 of injuries sustained in a car-bomb attack two days earlier near the presidential palace in downtown Dushanbe. Six others were wounded in that blast. On August 2, Imomnazarov’s wife was assassinated at her husband’s grave. The perpetrators of both murders remain unidentified. Imomnazarov had been the chief of the Internal Affairs Ministry’s personnel section, and more recently deputy chief of the State Customs Committee. (Russian agencies, August 1-2) Both institutions, heavily staffed by natives of the president’s Kulob region, are infested by corruption and infighting among competing factions. — VS

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