Reports: 6 dead in armed attack in northern Kazakhstan

MOSCOW – Six people are reported to have died in armed attacks on gun shops and a military base in Kazakhstan’s city of Aktobe, including three of the attackers.

The Interfax news agency cited a spokesman for the Kazakh Interior Ministry, Almas Sadubayev, as saying the attackers were believed to be followers of “nontraditional religious tendencies,” a phrase that often refers to radical Islam.

Reports cited Sadubayev as saying the attackers targeted two gun stores and a National Guard base on Sunday afternoon in the city in Kazakhstan’s northwest, about 1,400 kilometres (875 miles) southeast of Moscow.

Three attackers, two national guardsmen and a store clerk were killed, Sadubayev was quoted as saying.