Inside Badakhshan: Tensions on Central Asia’s southern frontier
This is the final story in our series of audio features — also available as long reads — made possible by the International Press Institute. To continue enjoying free access to our audio documentaries, please upgrade to a paid subscription.Home should be a safe place. But for Yasoman Yatimzoda, a 21-year-old from Dashtak village in the Darvoz district of Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan region, it proved deadly. On August 13th, as she went about her daily tasks, a stray bullet entered her home through a window and ended her life.It soon became clear that the bullet had come from Afghanistan’s Darwaz district, located on the opposite bank of the Panj River. The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry stated that it had been fired by “destructive and opportunistic individuals”, elements seeking to create disorder in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province and fuel distrust between the neighbouring countries.But the tragic death of the young woman was not the first time violence in Badakhshan had spilled across the border. In January this year, four armed men who had crossed illegally from Afghanistan were shot by Tajik border patrol. Later that month, three Afghan nationals were killed in a shootout with Tajik border guards. They were carrying four bags of opium and hashish.Earlier, in November 2025, five Chinese nationals were killed in two separate attacks in Tajikistan launched from Afghanistan. In total, 20 armed clashes were reported along the Tajik-Afghan border in less than two years. This figure does not include targeted assassinations, skirmishes, or unrest within Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province, which continued throughout this year, making it one of Afghanistan’s most unstable regions.But this was not always the case. While drug trafficking has long been a problem along the Tajik-Afghan border, the level of instability the region has experienced in the recent months has been unprecedented. It has also prompted the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance bringing together Russia and several of its allies, to strengthen security along the Tajik-Afghan border, modernise border infrastructure, and supply weapons and advanced surveillance equipment.A province on edgeMohammed sits on a plastic chair on a hotel balcony, squinting in the intense September sun. It is hot, and he is anxious. He asks to remain anonymous, fearing repercussions. Under Taliban rule, it is better to be careful, especially now, when the streets are full of law enforcement officers from outside the region.In February this year, the Taliban deployed an additional 1,000 police officers to Badakhshan to strengthen security and tighten their control over the province. The road to Fayzabad, the regional capital, now passes through dozens of checkpoints. They are more frequent than in other provinces, and the checks are more thorough. Every now and then, a police officer checks the documents of passengers in passing vehicles. It is hard to say whether these controls serve any purpose beyond appearances. Fayzabad is full of Taliban fighters, too, a rare sight in this part of Afghanistan.Mohammed now lives in Fayzabad, but he was born in Darwaz district, across the river from the village where the Tajik woman was killed. This year, his home district made international headlines several times, and for all the wrong reasons. In a straight line, Darwaz is about 160 kilometres from Fayzabad, but the road passes through mountains and rough terrain, and the journey can take up to 12 hours.Until last March, Mohammed worked as a miner at a gold mine in Darwaz. He never liked the job, but it paid well compared with other work available in Badakhshan, one of Afghanistan’s poorest provinces. He earned enough to cover his expenses and even save some money. He had got the job two years earlier, together with his brother. It was hard, dirty, and dangerous work. Dozens of miners had lost their lives in recent years while working in the mines. But with his journalism degree offering few prospects in the new Afghan reality, the job was good enough.After the Taliban returned to power in 2021, gold mines – many consisting of makeshift tunnels – sprang up across Badakhshan. In previous years, most gold extraction had been artisanal. The former Islamic Republic government had never managed to develop the mining industry on an industrial scale. Extraction was too costly, too complex, or too risky. When the Taliban took over, the security situation improved, as the Taliban themselves had previously posed the main security threat. Large-scale extraction became more feasible.It was a cold day in March when Mohammed vowed never to return to mining. He was preparing to enter the tunnel when he heard gunshots.“We were there, witnessing everything, and it was extremely dangerous for us. Then my brother got injured, and we thought we were all going to die there. I think it was the Taliban who shot him. Fortunately, my friends were safe, and my brother was the only one who got injured,” Mohammad says.“We were miners. We worked in a mine. We couldn’t get anywhere. The Taliban were shooting.”You can support Turan Tales on Buy Me a Coffee! Get a membership or make a one-off donation to help us bring the next episodes to lifeMohammed’s brother was shot in the leg. When the fighting ended, Taliban forces helped to take him to a hospital in Fayzabad. He survived, but his injuries were serious. He is still undergoing treatment in Kabul to make a full recovery.“The clashes affected everyone in the area. Many people were injured, and some were taken to hospital. The fighting continued, and people went without food for days,” he says.In Darwaz, the Taliban were not fighting their government’s enemies. They were fighting one of their own: Juma Khan Fateh, the self-styled Sultan of Darwaz.The Sultan of DarwazJuma Khan Fateh is not a typical Taliban commander. He is not Pashtun but a Sunni Tajik, a member of an ethnic group that makes up much of Badakhshan’s population. He was born into a poor family, most likely in 1984. He finished school after the US invasion of Afghanistan and joined the HALO Trust, a humanitarian organisation that clears landmines, in 2009. This could have been the beginning of a lasting career with Western organisations. But Fateh’s temper set him on a different path.In 2013, he allegedly organised a failed assassination attempt against his boss at the HALO Trust and went into hiding. It was probably around that time that he joined the Taliban.“Despite having no militant background, either with the Taliban or with government forces, he became a prominent militant in Darwaz, at the northernmost tip of Badakhshan. Because of his uniqueness, he became quite high-profile in a region where the Taliban had few other contacts or people to rely on. He became an important Taliban commander,” says Fabrizio Foschini, a senior analyst at the Afghanistan Analysts Network.When the Taliban returned to power, people like Fateh proved to be valuable assets. In Badakhshan, a remote, mountainous region, they already had a man they could rely on.“What happened was that someone who was not considered a trusted Taliban member, with a long record of militancy or strong ideological ties to the Taliban leadership, became a major figure at the local level,” Foschini says.“The Taliban did not have a very well-developed organisation in Badakhshan. They probably had not even expected to win so easily. They had a number of commanders, and overnight these people became very important because they had conquered an entire province – one of the largest, with a reputation for being strongly anti-Taliban.”Historically, Badakhshan was home to several Central Asian ethnic groups, including Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, and Hazaras. Pashtuns, who make up the majority of the Taliban movement, were not well-represented in this remote, mountainous regi… Get full access to Turan Tales at turantales.substack.com/subscribe
