Kazakhstan is facing massive recruitment of its citizens by terror organizations, a Tengrinews.kz journalist reports, citing Nurtai Abykayev, Head of the country's National SecurityCommittee (NSC).
Kazakhstan is facing massive recruitment of its citizens by terror organizations, a Tengrinews.kz journalist reports, citing Nurtai Abykayev, Head of the country's National SecurityCommittee (NSC).
"I want to outline the problems Kazakhstan is facing like many other nations nowadays ... We are facing massive recruitment, promotion of extremism and terrorism ideas on the Internet, smuggling of illegal extremism-promoting literature, and illegal penetration of missionaries to our territory", Mr. Abykayev said when speaking at a conference on counteraction to extremism.
"Due to shortage of spiritual literacy, some believers come up with radical ideas, especially freshman converted to Islam only a short time ago. When facing tough situations, some of them start to believe that they have figured out the true reasons behind social injustice and turn to the so-called jihad", he said.
According to him, around 150 Kazakhstan-born militants are actively involved into war conflicts in Syria and Iraq, with around 200 spouses and widows of mercenaries and their children accompanying them on their missions. &ldquoOftentimes journalist ask why the Kazakh government should ban such people from leaving the country. These people supposedly have the right to choose a path of terror and die somewhere in Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq. But the NSC believes it inadmissible for the country's citizens to transform into terrorists", he said. "Besides, it is not excluded that some of these people, fully confused about spiritual values, can get back to their homeland, guided by their distorted mind and far-from-being-good intentions, to apply all their new skills of terror attacks", he said.