Meanwhile, Mr Rahmonov is still under pressure on the Islamic question from outside Tajikistan.

The Interior Minister of Russia, Sergey Stepashin, is reported by the Russian agency Interfax as repeating Russian hostility to what he called "Islamic fundamentalism".

Mr Stepashin was speaking in Tashkent at a meeting of Interior Ministers from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Uzbekistan has also kept up a barrage of speeches and broadcasts against political Islam, and has put on trial a large number of people accused of belonging to illegal Islamic groups.