MAY 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A suicide bomber blew himself up in the office of the security services in Aktobe, a city near a major gas field in northwest Kazakhstan. The bomb injured at least two other people. Islamic militant groups are the main suspects.

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MAY 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The physical damage from the suicide bomb attack on a security forces office in Aktobe, northwest Kazakhstan, on May 17 2011 was relatively light. The bomber killed himself, injured at least two other people and caused minor damage to a building.

Psychologically, though, for Kazakhstan the attack was devastating.

It was perhaps the first suicide bomb attack in Kazakhstan and despite the authorities’ quick denial, it may well be the work of militant Islamists.

Earlier this year sources in the Kazakh security services told The Conway Bulletin that fighting growing Islamic radicalism in the west of the country was their main priority.

The security sources said it was difficult to stop the internet videos and literature which were radicalising disenchanted young men and they said it was probably just a matter of time before there was an attack.

Adding to their problems, in September 2010 a senior Islamic cleric linked to al Qaeda had
also issued a fatwa against Kazakhstan’s police force.

But the biggest driver of radical Islam in western Kazakhstan comes from the North Caucasus, where Russia has fought militants for years. Dagestan is a short trip across the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan and in recent months Russian forces have killed Kazakhs fighting alongside rebels in Makhachkala, the scruffy, teeming Dagestani capital.

For much of the past two decades Kazakhstan has watched attacks by Islamic militants against its more turbulent neighbours and been able to project itself as the safe, stable Central Asian country. That may now have changed.

ENDS