Kazakhstan arrests 21 radicals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kazakhstan said Wednesday, August 31 it had arrested 21 members of radical groups plotting terror attacks in public places, after two deadly attacks that fuelled fears of rising extremism, AFP reports.

The security service of mainly Muslim Kazakhstan said in a statement that it had arrested 21 people from three groups after detaining them in two western regions bordering Russia.

The ex-Soviet country said it had foiled "attacks on law enforcement officers and also acts of terrorism in crowded public places" and had confiscated weapons, ammunition and TNT as well as "extremist" texts and symbols.

This summer Kazakhstan was shaken by two attacks with multiple victims that damaged its reputation for stability and led to concerns that home-grown radicalism could be on the rise in the oil-rich Central Asian republic.

On July 18, a gunman attacked a police station and a building used by the security services in the financial capital of Almaty, leaving six dead, with the authorities linking the gunman to followers of the ultra-conservative Salafi strain of Islam, AFP says.

On June 5, four civilians and three soldiers were killed in the western city of Aktobe when assailants attacked gun shops and tried to storm a military base in a bus they had hijacked.