AKIPRESS.COM - Chorqishloq village in Isfara region of Tajikistan has gained the unwanted reputation of being a jihadist hotbed, according to an article by Farangis Najibullah and Masum Muhammad-Rajab published on Radio Liberty.

The village of some 3,000 has come under intense scrutiny following allegations that a number of inhabitants left to wage jihad in Syria and Iraq.

After Tajik authorities estimated in September that 200 Tajiks had joined the fight, reports emerged that at least 20 were from Chorqishloq.

Relatives, neighbors, religious figures and even government officials in Chorqishloq are reluctant to talk about the village's jihadist link.

In the past year, numerous village men in their 20s and early 30s left for Syria and Iraq.

The idea that the village is a breeding ground for Islamist militants rankles locals.

Sadriddin Sodiqov, the soft-spoken imam of Chorqishloq's only mosque, distances the community from the alleged jihadists.

“Most of them wouldn't even come to mosque prayers and were not particularly religiously devout people,” Sodiqov says. “They don't even know what jihad really means.”

Chorqishloq officials say authorities are working to bring back the 20 suspected jihadists from Syria and Iraq. Officials and religious leaders have been holding public meetings at schools, mosques and teahouses in order to get their message out.

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