Tajikistan pardons over 100 nationals returning from Syria, Iraq

Tajikistan has granted amnesty to more than 100 of its nationals following their return home from Syria and Iraq, where they had joined radical Islamist groups, the interior minister said Thursday. Speaking in the capital Dushanbe, Ramazon Rahimzoda said the returnees had been pardoned in line with a 2015 government pledge, AFP reports. Most of the returnees in question had spent time in Syria. Rahimzoda also said that 250 citizens of Tajikistan, a majority-Muslim country, had died fighting for radical groups in Iraq and Syria, mostly Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).