DC Cyclists Killed In Islamic State Attack In Tajikistan

WASHINGTON, DC — A couple from Washington, D.C., who quit their jobs to bike around the globe were among two American bicyclists killed in an attack in Tajikistan on Sunday. The couple, Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, both 29, had been on the road for just over a year. Two Europeans, one from Switzerland and the other from the Netherlands, were also killed.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a car-and-knife attack on the cyclists, saying in a statement that several of its soldiers attacked the "citizens of the Crusader coalition."

Officials in the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation didn't publicly address the IS claim and instead blamed the Sunday attack on a banned local Islamist group. The young men featured in an IS-linked video resembled the individuals that Tajik authorities identified as attack suspects who were later killed by police.

Austin and Geoghegan chronicled their journey on a blog an spoke of the kindness and generosity of the strangers they have met while biking through Africa, Europe and central Asia. But they also noted they had encountered people who had tried to run them off the road or knock them off their bikes.

"Badness exists, sure, but even that's quite rare," Austin wrote in April. "By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous, wonderful and kind No greater revelation has come from our journey than this."

The four tourists were killed when a car rammed into a group of foreigners on bicycles south of the capital of Dushanbe, Tajik officials have said. The driver and the passengers then got out and attacked the cyclists with knives.

A video posted on an IS-linked website Tuesday shows five men sitting on a hill against the backdrop of a black-and-white IS flag and declaring allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The men say they're from Tajikistan and pledge to slaughter disbelievers in the name of Allah. A note accompanying the video said the men took part in the weekend attack.

Tajikistan's Interior Ministry posted photos Tuesday of what it said were the bodies of four suspected attackers lying dead in a field. Three of the men resemble ones in the IS video.

It blamed the attack on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, a local party banned several years ago for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.

Tajikistan, an impoverished, predominantly Muslim nation of some 8 million people, was devastated by a 5-year civil war with Islamist-inspired rebel forces that ended in 1997.

Alarmed by the rise of the Islamic State group in recent years, Tajik authorities have clamped down on behavior and traditions associated with Islam, regulating how people dress and behave at funerals and ordering men to shave their beards. Critics say the restrictions could help radicalize secular Muslims.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In this photo taken on Sunday, July 29, 2018, cycles are left where four tourists were killed when a car rammed into a group of foreigners on bicycles south of the capital of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The Islamic State group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a car-and-knife attack on Western tourists cycling in Tajikistan that killed two Americans and two Europeans. (AP Photo/Zuly Rahmatova)