Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 03/2013

Blue Skies and Dark Clouds: Kazakhstan and Small Arms

Nicolas Florquin, Dauren Aben, Takhmina Karimova

May 2012

Small Arms Survey

Abstract

In May 2011, two deadly explosions targeted facilities of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB) in Aktobe Oblast and Astana.  One of the attacks was reportedly the first suicide bombing in the country (Lillis, 2011a). Two months later, in the same oblast, authorities conducted a two-week operation in the villages of Shubarshi and Kenkiyak to neutralize an armed group responsible for the killing of two police officers and suspected of religious radicalism. The special units killed nine members of the group and lost two more officers during the intervention (MIA, 2011; Mednikova and Bogatik, 2011). While Kazakhstan is generally perceived as a beacon of stability in an otherwise troubled region, such incidents demonstrate that economic growth and political stability do not render a country immune to home-grown armed violence.