The Pamir mountain range in Tajikistan. Photo credit: Makalu on Pixabay (free to use). The territory of present-day Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, located in the Pamir mountain range of Tajikistan, and still widely referred to by its Soviet-era acronym GBAO, was a central hub for the ancient Silk Road. To this day, it also remains a contested center of wars for power and influence in Central Asia, which continues to affect the daily life of the local population, known as the Pamiris, just as it did during the 19th century during the Great Game between Great Britain and Russia. During the 1992–97 Tajik civil war, Pamiri field commanders in GBAO sided with the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), which led to ethnically motivated persecution of Pamiris in the west of the country as well as a supply crisis in GBAO. The civil war ended with a power-sharing agreement under which former UTO field commanders would occupy 30 percent of high-level government posts. However, in the course of the consolidation of President Emomali Rahmon’s power, almost all former leading members of the UTO have been successively sidelined or otherwise politically silenced. The increasingly authoritarian character of the political system manifests in, among other things, more restrictive measures against NGOs, critical journalists and citizens, a ban on the main opposition party (the Islamic Revival Party) in 2015, pressure on independent media, and internet censorship. In remote GBAO, however, the groupings around current President Rahmon, who emerged as a winner in the civil war, were able to assert their monopoly on political and economic power to a lesser extent than elsewhere. Based on their reputation as defenders of the region during the civil war, some of the former Pamiri field commanders of the UTO retained a certain informal influence (particularly in the regional capital of Khorugh) , their control over weapons and groups loyal to them, and their income sources from drug smuggling with Afghanistan. They maintained a heroic status, particularly among sections of the youth, because they exploited a widespread sense of resistance to undemocratic external rule for their own purpose. The central government's attempt to eliminate former Pamiri field commanders of the UTO as political and economic actors and thereby impose its own monopoly on power in GBAO culminated in a massive attack by government forces on their respective strongholds in Khurogh on July 24, 2012. The intervention was described as a “special operation” by the authorities in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. The day-long violent conflict in the city left dozens killed and resulted in dozens of casualties and a further alienation of the local population. After the assassination of one of the former Pamiri field commanders of the UTO in August 2012, there were massive demonstrations in Khorogh. Human rights violations during and after the attack were never adequately addressed by the authorities. On May 21, 2014, an amateurishly executed and bloody attempt by security forces to arrest or liquidate a local suspect of drug smuggling in the city center during rush hour, in which three civilians and a policeman were killed, resulted in an angry mob setting fire to three government buildings in Khurogh. Political demands against arbitrary violence by security forces were expressed in a demonstration that lasted several days. During a visit to Khurogh in mid-September 2018, President Rahmon blamed the provincial government and security forces in GBAO for an allegedly deteriorating security situation in the region. He gave them a one-month ultimatum to deal with a “handful of criminals,” by which he most likely meant former Pamiri field commanders of the UTO. He also gave permission for the military to be deployed. Subsequently, many high-ranking officials in both the provincial government and the security forces in GBAO were replaced. In october 2018, Rahmon appointed Yodgor Faizov as the new governor for the region. Faizov is an Ismaili, a member of the Shi'a school of Islam school that dominates in the region, and a native of GBAO. He built his career within in the Aga Khan Foundation, an influential Ismaili NGO, and served as a mediator as its highest representative in Tajikistan during the 2012 conflict, which explains this popularity among the GBAO population. However, the central government maintained a massive military presence, and the alleged threat to law and order posed by organized crime in GBAO remained a strong and uniform theme in pro-government media.