Akimat (city council) building in Atyrau. Photo courtesy of "Azzatyk Radio"
The first signs of extremist activities in Atyrau go back to long before the terrorist attacks on 31 October 2011. In 2005 Shymkent-born Andrei Mironov planned to blow up the city akimat (mayor’s office). According to CentrAsia newspaper Mironov, who converted to Islam and received a new religious name Abdul Vahha in 2001, was working out an elaborate terrorist attack scheme. Having undergone training as an electrician, the man found a job with the Atyrau akimat and plotted to explode the city’s council in late August 2005. To do so the malefactor brought components for a hand-made explosive into the building, made copies of the council’s floor plan and obtained duplicates of keys to the rooms of vice akim and head of the department. However law-enforcement authorities managed to prevent the attack and arrest the plotter. Later she explained that he came to Atyrau “to make a blast, arson or any other crime to harm the unfaithful.” For the attempt to make a terrorist attack Mironov was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in a general regime colony. There were two blasts near the akimat of Atyrau oblast and the city prosecutor's office in Atyrau on October 31. One of the explosives was set off by a suicide bomber. The police detained members of the organized crime group suspected of the attacks. Radical group “Khalifat Solders” claimed responsibility for the attack.
The first signs of extremist activities in Atyrau go back to long before the terrorist attacks on 31 October 2011. In 2005 Shymkent-born Andrei Mironov planned to blow up the city akimat (mayor’s office).
According to CentrAsia newspaper Mironov, who converted to Islam and received a new religious name Abdul Vahha in 2001, was working out an elaborate terrorist attack scheme. Having undergone training as an electrician, the man found a job with the Atyrau akimat and plotted to explode the city’s council in late August 2005. To do so the malefactor brought components for a hand-made explosive into the building, made copies of the council’s floor plan and obtained duplicates of keys to the rooms of vice akim and head of the department.
However law-enforcement authorities managed to prevent the attack and arrest the plotter. Later she explained that he came to Atyrau “to make a blast, arson or any other crime to harm the unfaithful.” For the attempt to make a terrorist attack Mironov was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in a general regime colony.
There were two blasts near the akimat of Atyrau oblast and the city prosecutor's office in Atyrau on October 31. One of the explosives was set off by a suicide bomber. The police detained members of the organized crime group suspected of the attacks. Radical group “Khalifat Solders” claimed responsibility for the attack.