Photo: Pavel Pavol Agency Getty Images
There is no reason to say that the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan (KNB) thwarted the uprising of the Islamic fundamentalist underground in Alma-Ata. Counterintelligence was quite aware of how the ideas of aggressive Islamism were developing in the minds of young Kazakhs. She had no shortage of agents in their ranks.
The Salafi communities of Western Kazakhstan 15 years ago supplied militants to the North Caucasus. They were found among those killed in the counter-terrorist operations of the FSB in these parts. Soon the KNB began to find caches with automatic weapons in Kazakhstan itself.
Elite special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were sent to operations against Islamic militants. In the end, the leadership of Kazakhstan was forced, taking into account the experience gained, to limit religious and educational activities in 2011 by a special law.
In the future, the struggle did not stop, and KNB operations sometimes ended in full-fledged battles with militants. & nbsp;
But the actual number of jihadists ready for an armed struggle against Nazarbayev's secular regime was absolutely insufficient on the eve of the New Year holidays. Indeed, in 2014-2015, during the heyday of the «State of ISIS» (prohibited in Russia), the overwhelming majority of the most passionate jihadists in Kazakhstan left for Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Even a separate organization, the Kazakh Islamic Jihad, has emerged in Syria.
Experts talk about a maximum of several hundred members with families who have moved to ISIS for the entire time.
Now that passions have largely subsided, talk about twenty thousand out of nowhere supporters of «Islamic International ”- exactly such a figure was announced by President Tokayev in his famous address to the people — is absurd.
Seven years ago, the operational staff of the KNB carried out very complex operational combinations abroad. It is known about the operation «Naiza» carried out in Syria. During its preparation, information from closed meetings of the leadership of the jihadists was used — agents of the Kazakh special services «Kaharman» and «Sunkar» were separately introduced into the leadership.