NUR-SULTAN, January 5. /TASS/. Two servicemen were killed in counter-terror operation at the airport in Kazakhstan’s largest city of Almaty, the republic’s Zakon.kz news portal reported.
Earlier, the city’s commandant's headquarters reported that the law enforcement agencies had launched an anti-terror special operation in Almaty.
Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev told the Security Council’s meeting on Wednesday that terrorist gangs had seized the airport in Almaty and five airliners, including foreign aircraft.
According to the Almaty airport’s press service, a special operation was carried out in the building and the airport was liberated.
During the riots in the republic 8 law enforcers were killed, 317 police officers and National Guard troops were wounded, the Kazakh Interior Ministry’s press service said.
The protests in Kazakhstan flared up on January 2 in the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the Mangystau Region, in the country’s southwest, where citizens protested against high fuel prices. Two days later, the riots erupted in Almaty, in the southeast, and other cities across the republic, where clashes with police broke out. Tokayev imposed a two-week state of emergency across the country and dismissed the government. Speaking at the Security Council’s meeting, he branded those individuals who went on a rampage as terrorists and said he had requested assistance of the member-states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a post-Soviet security bloc.