Six people have been detained in the Tajik southern city of Kulob on suspicion of attempting on security officer’s life.

Tajik law enforcement authorities say all of them are followers of the Salafi group.

Recall, Kulob has seen two vicious attacks on law enforcement officers in the space of few days.

The southern Tajik city of Kulob has seen two vicious attacks on law enforcement officials in the space of a few days.

Overnight on May 14, a 25-year-old officer with the State Committee for National Security (SCNS), Muhiddin Yulayev, was hospitalized with 24 stab wounds after being assaulted by unknown persons.  The incident occurred in the center of Kulob.

Physicians now assess his heath conditions as satisfactory. 

And then on the evening of May 16, two people assaulted a 24-year old police officer, again in Kulob and around 100 meters from the earlier attack.  The policewoman, Maryam Sharifzoda, also had to be treated for her wounds in hospital.

EurasiaNet.org notes that according to some sources, Sharifzoda was involved in enforcing the informal hijab ban, and the attacks could have been inspired by online Islamic State propaganda exhorting sympathizers to attack representatives of the law enforcement community.

Gulmurod Halimov, who left a high-ranking post in Tajikistan’s riot police to join up with the Islamic State group in the Middle East, has specifically in his public addresses called on his compatriots to make police the target of attacks.

“Carry out jihad at home, attack policemen.  You don’t need any special weapons, you can just take a household knife and take your vengeance upon them. That can be your jihad,” he once said, according to EurasiaNet.org.

The Salafi movement or Salafist movement is an ultra-conservative orthodox movement within Sunni Islam that references the doctrine known as Salafism.  The movement first appeared in Tajikistan in the early 2000s, having been brought back to the country by Tajiks that had taken refuge in Pakistan during the civil war.

The movement claims to follow a strict and pure form of Islam, but Tajik clerics say the Salafists’ radical stance is similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Salafists do not recognize other branches of Islam, such as Shi''a and Sufism.  The movement is frequently referred to as Wahhabism, although Salafists reject this as derogatory.

The Tajik authorities banned Salafism as an illegal group on January 8, 2009, saying the Salafist movement represents a potential threat to national security and the Supreme Court added the movement to its list of religious groups prohibited from operating in the country.

On December 8, 2014, the Supreme Court of Tajikistan formally labeled the banned Salafi group as an extremist organization.  The ruling reportedly followed a request submitted to the court by the Prosecutor-General’s Office.  The ruling means that the group’s website and printed materials are also banned.

The overwhelming majority of Tajiks are followers of the Hanafi madhab, a more liberal branch of Sunni Islam.