According to Churkin, a number of members of the CSTO in the region, many of whom are based along the northern Afghan frontier, are concerned that the instability NATO is causing is spreading into their nations.

Indeed when NATO began its occupation in 2001, northern Afghanistan was almost exclusively on their side, as NATO entered into an already existing civil war on the side of the Northern Alliance faction. After over nine years of NATO failing to destroy the insurgency, however, the Taliban has added to its sphere of influence and now has a growing presence across the northern border.

Churkin also addressed Afghan government complaints about Russia’s role in anti-drug operations in the country, which NATO apparently included Russia in without asking the Karzai government beforehand. Churkin insisted Russia’s involvement was long overdue and would continue.

The fighting continued throughout the day and into the night, as the Tajik Army struggled to get armored vehicles in the area. Though it remains unclear who was responsible for the ambush officials speculated that they were related to the Islamist opposition movement in the country.

The Tajik government faced a bloody civil war throughout the mid-1990’s with a lose confederation of opposition groups, which included both liberal reformists and Islamist factions. A number of Islamist opposition factions remain banned since the end of the conflict, and a number of them have cultivated ties with groups across the border in the ethnic Tajik portion of Afghanistan.

The government has continued to arrest members of the banned groups ever since, which has continued to fuel resentment and occasionally clashes. Today’s ambush appears to be unusually organized, however, and may point to a new upsurge in violence in the nation.

So what’s next for the growing militancy, besides setting monthly records in Afghanistan? Some diplomats fear that it could be Tajikistan, which they say is likely spillover from the Pakistani military’s Swat Valley offensive, done at the behest of the US.

It’s not just the diplomats, locals also see trouble brewing in Tajikistan. The government has tried to slough off the fighting as a war on drugs, but increasingly attacks along the Afghan border seem to be for their own sake, and far from just another drug war, the nation seems to be battling a full-fledged insurgency.

Tajikistan declared its independence during the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and was almost immediately torn apart by a bloody, five year long civil war between the autocratic government and an opposition made up of both pro-democracy liberals and Islamists.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed “regret” at the decision, and the United States is left scrambling to try to find other alternatives to the increasingly important overland supply route to Afghanistan. Russia has said they will cooperate, as has Tajikistan which has said it would allow humanitarian supplies into Afghanistan.

Many fingers have been pointed at Russia over the base closure, with reports that they offered Kyrgyzstan an enormous amount of aid to oust the US. Russia has been aiming at creating a military alliance in Central Asia called the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The alliance will include both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Belarus, giving them effective control over the northern border of Afghanistan.