Tajik journalist Temur Varki received a disquieting call from Paris police in late March, days after Islamic State militants from his homeland allegedly carried out a massacre in Moscow.
The two officers questioned him about France's tiny community of immigrants from Tajikistan, an impoverished former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
"Who do you know? How many? Where?" Varki recalled the officers asking, with one of them speaking Russian, a commonly used language across Central Asia. Varki, a political refugee in France who has worked for outlets including the BBC, told the police callers he knew a handful of Tajiks in the country, mainly fellow emigres and dissidents.
"But I don't know any jihadists," he told them.
Ahead of the Paris Olympics that begin on July 26, French security services have been racing to address an intelligence blind spot and forge deeper ties with Tajiks and other Central Asians in the country, according to more than a dozen people with knowledge of the drive. They include current and former intelligence officials, police, diplomats and Central Asian migrants who have been contacted by authorities.
The outreach, which hasn't been previously reported, comes in the wake two major attacks this year that authorities say were carried out by Tajik members of ISIS-K, a resurgent wing of Islamic State named after the historical region of Khorasan that included parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
A double suicide bombing in Iran on Jan. 3 killed about 100 people at a memorial ceremony for slain Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, while the Moscow tragedy on March 22 saw gunmen open fire at concertgoers at Crocus City Hall, killing more than 130 people.
The two officers questioned him about France's tiny community of immigrants from Tajikistan, an impoverished former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
"Who do you know? How many? Where?" Varki recalled the officers asking, with one of them speaking Russian, a commonly used language across Central Asia. Varki, a political refugee in France who has worked for outlets including the BBC, told the police callers he knew a handful of Tajiks in the country, mainly fellow emigres and dissidents.
"But I don't know any jihadists," he told them.
Ahead of the Paris Olympics that begin on July 26, French security services have been racing to address an intelligence blind spot and forge deeper ties with Tajiks and other Central Asians in the country, according to more than a dozen people with knowledge of the drive. They include current and former intelligence officials, police, diplomats and Central Asian migrants who have been contacted by authorities.
The outreach, which hasn't been previously reported, comes in the wake two major attacks this year that authorities say were carried out by Tajik members of ISIS-K, a resurgent wing of Islamic State named after the historical region of Khorasan that included parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
A double suicide bombing in Iran on Jan. 3 killed about 100 people at a memorial ceremony for slain Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, while the Moscow tragedy on March 22 saw gunmen open fire at concertgoers at Crocus City Hall, killing more than 130 people.
