French hostage in Tajikistan killed after rescue is botched

Hostage-taking in Tajikistan yesterday claimed the life of a French aid worker. Phil Reeves in Moscow says the violence in the former Soviet republic worries the West's oil men as well as the Kremlin.

A French hostage in Tajikistan died yesterday after a disastrous rescue operation in which heavily armed government troops stormed the hide-out in which she was imprisoned. Her death is a setback for the Central Asian nation which had been trying to prove to the world that, after four years of civil war, it was making headway in its effort to restore stability by clamping down on a rash of abductions.

An aircraft was last night heading from France to the capital, Dushanbe, to pick up the body of Karine Mane, who worked for an organisation funded by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.

There were conflicting reports about what happened in the fatal operation, although it clearly went badly wrong. According to Reuters, local residents said it began when a government tank drove into the courtyard of the house in which she was imprisoned, and rammed it.

Although this was not officially confirmed, the Tajik foreign ministry admitted government forces attacked the building. Another official said five of Ms Mane's guards walked out into the courtyard shouting "Allah Akhbar" ("God is Great") and blew themselves up with a grenade, which badly injured her.

Her death came a day after her partner, Franck Janier-Dubry, an official with the EU's Tacis programme, was released. The two were abducted nearly a fortnight ago in what appears to have been the latest round in a feud between the government and one of the Islamic warlords who have been vying for power.

Whatever the truth behind the details, the incident is evidence that the Tajik authorities are struggling to impose order on the divided nation of 5.5 million people. In June, a shaky peace agreement was struck between the government under President Imomali Rakhmonov and the main Islamic opposition, after a long conflict in which 20,000 died and more than 100,000 fled the country.

But in the last few months, peace has been under considerable strain. Dushanbe - a city populated by a bizarre mixture of dagger-wielding bearded Islamic fighters, government troops, UN officials, Russian workers and oil executives - has been disrupted by bombings, and shootings.

The violence has caused a ripple of consternation from Moscow to Washington. Though small, Tajikistan is a component in a much larger geopolitical struggle in the region. The government is propped up by Moscow, which has 20,000 troops on Tajik territory as a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism along its vulnerable southern flank - a fear sharpened by the ascendancy of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The region is also important to the United States and others keen to exploit the vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, and to choke off a flood of narcotics from the region. For similar strategic reasons, Iran is keenly interested in its smaller neighbour.

The players in this power game are not finding it easy to impose their will. When the two French were abducted on 18 November, the US embassy in Dushanbe advised Americans to leave the country, adding - with unusual bluntness - that the Tajik government had failed to demonstrate that it had the capacity to protect foreign nationals. Yesterday it sought to do so, with tragic consequences.