JAN. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s National Security Council dropped the threat level of a major terrorist attack from yellow. The Security Committee did not give a reason for dropping the threat from moderate. It was raised to moderate or yellow in June and extended in August. Kazakhstan had always intended to drop the threat level in January.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Aktobe, north-west Kazakhstan, sentenced seven men to prison for terrorism related offences. The state prosecutors said that the group had been planning a series of attacks against Russia and Russians. Central Asian governments have become increasingly wary of attacks on their territory and of Islamic radicals using the region as a prime recruiting ground.
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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Turkey named the suspected gunman who killed 39 people at a nightclub in Istanbul on New Years Eve as Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national. They said that he had links with IS in Iraq and Syria and that he has been living in Turkey since 2011. The accusation once again pulls Central Asia into the spotlight over IS recruitment in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The suspects behind the attack on the Chinese embassy in Bishkek last year are in hiding in Istanbul, Kyrgyz media quoted Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to Turkey as saying. A car bomb killed two people working at the embassy on Aug. 30 2016. The authorities have blamed Uighurs from China’s western Xinjiang Province. Turkey has not commented.
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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will receive an order of four Mi-35M combat helicopters from Russia in 2018, Russian Helicopters said. Kazakhstan has been looking to modernise and improve its military. It has signed various deals with Russia to boost military relations. The Mi-35M is Russia’s most sophisticated combat helicopter and is designed to attack land-based vehicles.
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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Azad Systems started manufacturing a version of an Israeli drone, media reported. Azerbaijan-Israel ties have improved over the past half a decade. Israel buys oil from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan buys military equipment from Israel. Azerbaijan has spent heavily on improving its military and military-industrial base over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
DEC. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At least four soldiers, three Armenian and one Azerbaijani, were killed in fighting between the two neighbours, media reported quoting officials from both Armenia and Azerbaijan. The skirmishes are the most serious around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh since dozens died in April 2016. A UN-brokered deal has held an uneasy peace over the region since 1994.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
DEC. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Kazakhstan arrested Nartay Dutbayev, a former head of the Kazakh National Security Council, for allegedly leaking state secrets, media reported. He was detained four days earlier with two other men. Mr Dutbayev had been head of the Kazakh National Security Council between 2001 and 2006 and was considered to be an associate of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Details of the case have not yet been released.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
JAN. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An ethnic Azerbaijani woman with Russian citizenship, Nurana Hasanova, was killed during an attack by an alleged member of the radical IS group on a nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve. It’s not clear ifHasanova was working at the nightclub or was visiting. At least 39 people died in the attack.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
JAN. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Radical Islamist recruitment from Central Asia came under the spot- light after the authorities in Turkey accused a Kyrgyz man of killing at least 39 people at a nightclub in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve. The attack was claimed by the extremist IS group. The Turkish authorities later retracted the accusation and instead said that they were hunting for an ethnic Uighur who may have spent time in Kyrgyzstan. Security experts have said that Central Asia is a prime recruiting group for IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)