Kazakhstan Accuses Foreign -Trained Islamic Radical Groups Of Involvement In Riots

Riot protests in Kazakhstan. (Wikimedia Commons/Esetok)

JAKARTA - Kazakh authorities said Monday, overseas-trained Islamist radicals were among those implicated in rioting, which attacked government buildings and security forces last week with police now having detained nearly 8,000 people to control the situation.

Authorities on Monday for the first time linked the violence to what they say are members of the Islamist group.

"As events in Almaty and several other regions of the country show, Kazakhstan has been the target of armed aggression by well-coordinated terrorist groups trained abroad", the foreign ministry said in a statement, citing Reuters on January 10.

"According to preliminary data, the attackers included individuals who had military combat zone experience in the ranks of radical Islamic groups", the ministry continued, without specifying any specific groups.

Government buildings in several cities were seized or burned last week as peaceful protests against rising fuel prices turned violent in the worst attack of violence in the post-Soviet Central Asian nation's history.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev accepted the dissolution of his cabinet, issued a fire order, and declared a state of emergency in the oil-rich nation of 19 million.

He also asked the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military bloc to send troops, which the government said had been deployed to guard strategic objects.

President Tokayev will take part in a video conference of the bloc's leaders at 0700 GMT on Monday.

To note, the National Security Committee said on Monday, a day of official mourning, the situation had stabilized and security forces had restored control.

Russian and state media, citing a state social media post, have reported that 164 people have died. Health authorities and police did not confirm the figure, and the original social media post has since been deleted.

"I think there is some kind of conspiracy involving certain domestic and foreign destructive forces", Foreign Minister, Yerlan Karin, told state television on Monday, without naming the suspect.