Nine people including a Tajik officer died and 24 others injured during an "anti-terror" operation on Wednesday in a restive Tajikistan region bordering Afghanistan and China, the Tajik Interior Ministry said.

One officer died and 13 troops received serious injuries, the ministry said, adding that eight members of an "illegal armed grouping" had been killed and another 11 wounded during an operation in the eastern region of Gorno-Badakhshan, the ministry said in a statement.

Tajikistan launched an "anti-terror operation" in its restive Gorno-Badakhshan province, which borders Afghanistan and China, Russia's RIA news agency cited the Tajik Interior Ministry as saying.

The news agency said members of an "organized criminal group" had blocked a road linking Tajikistan and China to "destabilize the social and political situation" in the impoverished former Soviet republic, which hosts a Russian military base.

The operation followed reports of clashes late last year between protesters and security forces in the provincial capital, Khorog, in which at least one protester was killed by police.

The protesters demanded a retrial of an activist convicted for hostage-taking.

Dozens of people were killed in clashes between a domestic armed group and government forces in Gorno-Badakhshan in 2012.