| Submit your comments on this article | ||
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia | ||
| Almaty armed attack: 8 people hospitalized | ||
| 2016-07-19 | ||
| Eight people, injured during the armed attack in Almaty, have been hospitalized, said Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development July 18. Their condition is listed as serious, said the ministry. Kazakh media reported about a shooting near the Almaly District Interior Department in the center of Almaty July 18 morning. Four people, including three police officers and one civilian, were killed. The suspect was arrested by the police. An operation is underway to detain the criminal’s accomplice.
Two witnesses told Reuters they had heard shots in several areas in the centre of Almaty, the mainly Muslim country's biggest city. "We saw a man with a rifle, he passed by," one shop worker said by phone. Police cordoned off several central streets, including the one near a local office of the KNB security police, where shots were also heard. "I heard one shot, most probably, fired from a pistol," said one man standing nearby. At least one attacker had been detained by the police, the RIA news agency quoted a security source as saying. It said several policemen had also been wounded. Kazakhstan, an oil rich-rich nation of 18 million, is far more prosperous than its post-Soviet neighbours in Central Asia. President Nursultan Nazarbayev, 76, has ruled it with a firm hand since 1989, making stability his motto. But the country has recently seen outbreaks of violence, initially triggered by discontent over proposed land reforms. The KNB, successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said last month it had detained several members of a group which planned "terrorist acts using improvised explosive devices", following a deadly attack in the northwestern town of Aktobe. In that incident, about two dozen men described by the authorities as sympathisers of Islamic State, attacked gun stores and a national guard facility, killing seven people. Security forces killed 18 attackers, some on the same day and some in the subsequent manhunt. | ||
| Posted by:Steve White |