Seventeen killed in attack on Tajik border outpost, authorities say

Seventeen killed in attack on Tajik border outpost.

Seventeen people were killed in an overnight shootout at an outpost on the Tajik-Uzbek border that was attacked by armed men wearing masks, Tajik authorities said on Wednesday.

The 20 attackers killed a border guard and a policeman before 15 of them were killed by return fire, Tajikistan’s National Security Committee said. The remaining five were captured, it said in a statement.

It gave no other information about the attackers and said an investigation was underway into the incident, which happened 50 km (30 miles) southwest of the capital, Dushanbe.