Six dead in armed attack in ‘northern Kazakhstan’

At least six people were killed in coordinated attacks on two gun shops and a national guard base in the Kazakh city of Aktobe, officials said on Sunday.

Citing eye-witnesses, Kazinform, the national news agency of Kazakhstan, reported that a group of unidentified men robbed two weapon shops in Aktobe and a shootout broke out when a local police force arrived.

Some media reports cited an “official representative” of the Interior Ministry, Almas Sadubaev, as saying that units of the National Guard exchanged fire with the assailants on the scene, resulting in the death of one officer and one soldier.

Sadubaev also said that three of the assailants were killed, one was arrested, and several others managed to escape from the scene and remain at large so far.

Aktobe, a city near the Russian border, was the site of one of Kazakhstan’s first terrorist attacks, where a suicide bomber set off an explosive device in the headquarters of the Kazakh security services in 2011.

Agencies/Canadajournal