The Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist organization on Monday claimed an attack in which four Western cyclists were killed when a car plowed into them in Tajikistan.
The group made the claim on its Amaq propaganda news agency but did not provide further detail or evidence for its claim, according to Reuters.
The attackers “were soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the attack in response to calls to target the citizens of the coalition countries,” a statement by the group said.
The tourists, from the United States, Switzerland and the Netherlands, were killed in the Central Asian country on Sunday, authorities said.
Three others, from Switzerland, the Netherlands and France, were injured, one of them also from a stab wound.
Security forces pursuing suspects in the attack killed four, including one who resisted arrest, and detained a fifth man, the country’s interior ministry said, according to Reuters.
“We are looking into all versions - accident, robbery ... including a terrorist act,” Interior Minister Ramazon Rakhimzoda told a briefing.
Among the four suspects killed was the owner of the car, which police believe hit the group as they cycled through a rural area 90 km (55 miles) southeast of the capital Dushanbe.
In 2015, the parliament of Tajikistan approved a law annulling the citizenship of nationals fighting abroad with organizations such as ISIS.
That year, Colonel Gulmurod Halimov, a former commander of the interior ministry's special forces unit, shocked the country by announcing in a twelve-minute video clip appearing on YouTube that he had defected to ISIS as a result of perceived anti-Islamic policies in the tightly-controlled state.
Tajikistan, which is the most remittance-dependent country in the world according to the World Bank, declared ISIS a terrorist organization immediately after Halimov announced his defection.