Kazakhstan special services prevented 24 terrorist attacks in 2012

Kazakhstan special services managed to prevent 24 terrorist attacks this year, Tengrinews.kz reports citing deputy General Prosecutor of Kazakhstan Iogan Merkel as saying at the first annual international conference of Kazakhstan union of lawyers and union of criminologists. “The total of 112 crimes related to terrorism and extremism were detected in 10 months of this year. 40 Kazakhstan citizens involved in terrorist organizations were apprehended at the territory of other countries over the past 5 years. They were part of illegal armed groups. 68 members of international terrorist and extremist organizations were apprehended in Kazakhstan. This information certifies that our common goal is to counter terrorism and extremism,” Iogan Merkel said at the conference. Speaking of sources of funding of terrorism, Merkel said that the criminals penetrated even in the state procurement sector. “We are very concerned about supporters of the most radical religious views. Criminalization of the followers of untraditional religious groups, Salafis first of all, is growing, same as their binding with organized criminal groups. The criminal groups’ members get involved in untraditional religious movements and find ideological justifications of their crimes in religion. In some regions there have been radicals who attempted to gain control over criminal business and getting access to our state procurement processes, and use them as a source of finding for their activities,” deputy General Prosecutor said.