Overview
- Tajik border authorities report two guards and three intruders were killed after armed raiders crossed near Kavo in Shamsiddin Shokhin.
- Officials describe the firefight as the third similar incident in recent weeks involving fatalities on Tajik soil.
- Border troops say they recovered M-16 rifles, a Kalashnikov, pistols with silencers, grenades, a night-vision scope, and explosives from the scene.
- Tajikistan links the latest violence to earlier attacks that killed Chinese workers in late November and warns it will defend its territory.
- Afghan authorities had not commented as of the latest reports, and Tajikistan announced four new border crossings on December 24.