Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Secretary Ilyas Omarov announced that a militant killed in July on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia who had a Kazakh passport was not a citizen of the Republic. A probe to establish how he obtained the passport is now under way.
Omarov acknowledged, however, that one militant arrested in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan this month on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity is a Kazakh national.
“We know his name, but … cannot yet reveal it. I can say, though, that for the past 10 years he lived in Kyrgyzstan,” he said. The press secretary then added it was possible that the man “may not be the only Kazakh among those arrested.”
The Kyrgyz State National Security Committee (NSC) reported earlier that 18 men suspected of helping terrorists were arrested in Kyrgyzstan in June and July and that nine militants were killed in combat. The arrestees include citizens of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. They were trained at foreign camps run by terrorists, and some were previously involved in military operations against the counter-terrorism coalition in Afghanistan, according to the NSC. Special services say that the arrested men were involved in “passport forgery, the preparation of safe houses, means of transport and telecommunications equipment and the provision of food to militant groups.”
This was not the only example of international terrorism in Central Asia in recent months. Five Russians were killed in the Nurobod district of Tajikistan on July 16.