DUSHANBE, December 5, 2011, Asia-Plus — Kazakh Prosecutor-General’s Office says five militants and two members of an elite security force have been killed in a special operation in southern Kazakhstan.
According to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Nourdaulet Suindikov, a spokesman for Kazakh Prosecutor-General’s Office, told reporters on Sunday that persons suspected of having committed a number of serious crimes hid in a house in the village of Boraldai, Iliy district in Almaty region.
The clash reportedly broke out the criminals were surrounded by security forces late on December 3.
“Five militants and two officers of the special unit of Kazakh Committee for National Security were killed in the operation,” Suindikov said.
He added the militants also were thought to be responsible for the killing of two police officers on November 8 and had been planning new “violent acts” in Almaty.
According to Radio Liberty, Suindikov said the leader of the militant group, Khasen Agzhan, was among those killed.
An investigation group has been set up to investigate the incident. Criminal proceedings have been instituted under the provisions of three articles of Kazakhstan’s Penal Code: Article 96 – murder; Article 251 – illegally bearing, possessing, and acquiring weapons; and Article 237 – banditry.
We will recall that the clash comes three weeks after seven people were killed in the southern Kazakh city of Taraz when a suspected Islamist went on a shooting rampage and then blew himself up.
Seven people were killed on November 12 in the southern Kazakh city of Taraz when a suspected Islamist went on a shooting rampage and then blew himself up.
Radio Liberty reported the dead included five members of the security forces and that the attack was carried out by “a follower of jihadism.”
The November 12 attack came after a suspected extremist accidentally blew himself up in the western Kazakh city of Atyrau on the Caspian Sea on October 31.
An Islamist group, Jund al-Khilafah (Soldiers of the Caliphate), said it was behind that incident and another blast that took place on the same day in Atyrau.
