Kazakhstan’s president said on Friday he had ordered his forces to shoot-to-kill to deal with disturbances from those he called bandits and terrorists, a day after Russia sent troops to put down a countrywide uprising.
Kazakhstan’s president said on Friday he had ordered his forces to shoot-to-kill to deal with disturbances from those he called bandits and terrorists, a day after Russia sent troops to put down a countrywide uprising. S ecurity forces appeared to be in control of the streets of the main city Almaty on Friday morning but gunfire could still be heard after days of unrest in which dozens of people have been killed and public buildings ransacked and torched. “The militants have not laid down their arms, they continue to commit crimes or are preparing for them. The fight against them must be pursued to the end. Whoever does not surrender will be destroyed,” President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in a televised address. “I have given the order to law enforcement agencies and the army to shoot to kill without warning.” Tokayev has blamed foreign-trained terrorists for the worst violence in the Central Asian state’s 30 years of independence. Russia’s defence ministry, cited by Interfax, said more than 70 planes were flying round the clock to bring Russian troops into Kazakhstan, and they were now helping control Almaty’s main airport, recaptured on Thursday from protesters. Demonstrations that began as a response to a fuel price hike have swelled into a broad movement against the government and ex-leader Nursultan Nazarbayev,81, the longest-serving ruler of any former Soviet state.
