Not local unrest, trained Islamic terrorists stormed Kazakhstan: President Tokayev

Foreign terrorists from Afghanistan and the middle-east participated in riots that broke out in the parts of Kazakhstan last week, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has claimed. Interacting with European Council President Charles Michel in virtual format, Tokayev said the terrorists attacked government buildings and security forces. 

The Kazakh president expressed concern over the ongoing situation in his country and said that aggression was intended to form a 'zone of controlled chaos' with the further seizure of power. He also termed the unrest as a 'terrorist attack'. The President cited this as the reason why he ordered the launching of an anti-terrorist operation in the country. 

Additionally, the country's foreign ministry issued a statement, which said that the events in Almaty and many other parts of the country showed that Kazakhstan has been subjected to armed aggression by well-coordinated terrorist groups who had been trained abroad. The ministry further noted that preliminary data had suggested that the terrorists included individuals who had military combat experience in the ranks of radical Islamist groups.

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In order to bring peace and tranquillity to the Central Asian country, peacekeepers of a post-Soviet security bloc led by Russia -- the Collective Security Treaty Organization -- were deployed. The peacekeepers in CSTO belong to Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. 

These peacekeepers would remain in the country until the situation is fully stable, Tokayev said.

Last week, the police had detained around 8,000 people in the matter. Russia-led CTSO functions like the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It considers an attack on one member state as an attack on all others, and each state is obliged to support other members. In its 30-year history, it is for the first time that the CTSO peacekeepers have been deployed in any member nation.

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• Kazakhstan
• Kazakh Violence
• terror attack
• President Tokayev