Seven Dead in Militant Violence near Almaty

    By Joanna Lillis
    A clash between a group of suspected terrorists and security forces outside Kazakhstan's commercial capital has claimed seven lives, local news agencies reported.
    The weekend fighting is latest in a series of terrorism-related incidents that are sending shock waves through the country as authorities confront the rising threat to stability posed by homegrown extremism.
    The shootout occurred in the village of Boralday, five kilometers outside Almaty, when security forces moved in near midnight on December 3 to capture a group they suspected of being behind the killing of two police officers in central Almaty on November 8.
    Two members of the elite Arystan crack squad and five members of the group died, the prosecutor's office said, including the alleged leader, named Agzhan Khasen, who was wanted on suspicion of leading a terrorist group. Two grenades and four firearms were found in the house where the group was holed up.
    "There is no threat to the public and there are no grounds for anxiety," the prosecutor's office said in a statement.
    The incident brings the death toll from a string of cases with possible extremist links to 37, including 14 members of law-enforcement bodies.
    Violent attacks began in May, when an attacker targeted Kazakhstan's intelligence agency in the western city of Aktobe in Kazakhstan's first suicide bombing, which officials blamed on organized crime.
    That was followed by an unexplained car explosion in Astana, a clash between security forces and suspects in western Kazakhstan that ended in a bloodbath in July, two explosions in the western oil hub of Atyrau in October, and a series of attacks in the southern city of Taraz in November.
    In a short few months, extremist violence has become a nationwide phenomenon. Authorities have responded by introducing a restrictive new religious law that rights watchdogs fear could stoke radicalization, according to EurasiaNet.