World Bulletin / News Desk

The senior Tajikistan police official who apparently defected to ISIL had taken part in United States training on five seperate occasions, a State Department official has said.

Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, the head of the Ministry of Interior special forces OMON units, claimed in a video that he gone to the U.S.  at least three times for counterterrorism training, including with American mercenary firm Blackwater. "Listen, you American pigs: I've been to America three times. I saw how you train soldiers to kill Muslims," he said. "You taught your soldiers how to surround and attack, in order to exterminate Islam and Muslims."

His statement was confirmed by the State Department on May 30. "From 2003-2014 Colonel Khalimov participated in five counterterrorism training courses in the United States and in Tajikistan, through the Department of State's Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program," spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala told CNN.

OMON has been one of the key factors in U.S. security cooperation in Tajikistan, which has focused on training and equipping the country's various special forces units. The special forces are Tajikistan's most capable units and would be used to combat genuine security threats, they also are a key element of President Emomali Rahmon's repressive rule.

In an article in Eurasia in 2012, Tajikistan's leading opposition figure, Muhiddin Kabiri, told The Bug Pit: "I was recently in the airport in Istanbul and met 15-20 of our OMON troops who were returning from training in the U.S. I asked them about this training, and they said it was very good. I hope they will learn not only new military approaches but about human rights, how to protect people, how to protect human rights, the role of these kind of units in a democratic country. In our old Soviet system, the human has no place in this system. I hope when they have this training with the U.S. they will learn another approach, how to protect human rights, protect the country, not just one person. But I'm not sure if this has happened or not."

In a series of cables in 2008, and 2009, there was also mention of  training as well as requests from OMON squads to include the following: staff organization and planning, orders production, mission analysis and the military decision making process, intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB), direct action (raids and ambushes), special reconnaissance, close quarters combat/battle (CQC/B), sniper/observe operations, military operations in urban terrain (MOUT), Counter-Improvised Explosive Device (C-IED), Sensitive Site Exploitation (SSE), tactical communications and basic combat life saving."