Campaigning has officially begun for the first parliamentary elections in Tajikistan since the end of the civil war there.

Election authorities say that more than three hundred candidates have registered to compete for the sixty-three seats in a new lower chamber of parliament.

For the first time, the former rebels who fought the Russian-backed government during the war are taking part.

With three weeks to go to the voting, fears about security have been heightened following a bomb on a bus last week which killed several people, and three explosions on Monday in the Tajik capital Dushanbe.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service