Russian border guards in Tajikistan killed five suspected drug smugglers in a five-hour gunbattle on the border with Afghanistan ,officials said Sunday. According to border guards spokesman Gen. Maj. Gen. Sergei Zhilkin, a patrol encountered a group of 16 gunmen crossing the Pyandzh River into Tajikistan from Afghanistan Saturday night. (Read photo caption)

The patrol radioed for reinforcements after the gunmen opened fire on the border guards, Zhilkin said. Four border guards were wounded in the exchange of fire, he said.

Four of the intruders and a Tajik accomplice were killed, he said. Twelve suspects escaped back to Afghanistan, while border guards detained six suspected accomplices on the Tajik side of the river, Zhilkin said.

The border guards did not find any drugs, but Zhilkin said that was because the smugglers had spotted the patrol and some had managed to return to Afghanistan with the haul.

"If our border guards had not shown up early, we could have caught the drug carriers red-handed," Zhilkin said.
Such incidents occur almost daily along the Tajik-Afghan border.

Russia has about 25,000 troops stationed in Tajikistan to help prevent drug and weapons smuggling from Afghanistan through Central Asia and Russia to Europe.

Russian officials say there has been no letup in drug production in Afghanistan since the launch of the U.S.-led anti-terrorist campaign there last fall.

PHOTO CAPTION

Soldiers of Russia's 201st Motorized Infantry Division stationed in Tajikistan observe the Tajik-Afghan borderland near the Pyandzh River in Tajikistan, Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2001. (AP Photo)