ALMATY (TCA) — Four members of a radical group which was plotting a string of terrorist attacks were detained in the Almaty region of Kazakhstan, RFE/RL reports with reference to the Kazakh National Security Committee.
“The components for making improvised explosive devices and extremist religious materials, which they had kept at their residences…have been seized from the detained members of the group, which includes Kazakh and Kyrgyz nationals,” the Committee’s press service announced on August 22.
The Committee said it foiled plans by the militants to target the Committee’s own employees and offices, as well as police detachments and military units. The militants, who were not identified, also planned a second stage of attacks on crowded venues, it said.
Since the beginning of this year there have been two incidents described as terrorist acts in Kazakhstan.
The first one was a bloody rampage by dozens of young men in the northwestern city of Aktobe on June 5, which left at least 28 people dead. Officials blamed Islamists for that attack.
The second incident occurred in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, on July 18, when a lone gunman attacked a police station and a facility of the Committee of National Security, killing and wounding several officers and civilians. The National Security Committee identified the gunman as a 26-year-old man who adopted radical Islam during his incarceration on robbery and weapons-possession charges. The Committee said the gunman “became close to Salafists” while in jail, a reference to a banned hard-line strain of Islam.
