Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 - Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan detained and prosecuted suspected terrorists and took tangible steps to cooperate and share information with the United States and international organizations. With the addition of one international terrorist organization, the Islamic Party of Turkistan, to the list of already-banned terrorist organizations, the Government of Kazakhstan now designates 16 groups as banned terrorist and extremist organizations.

In April, the Kazakhstani Committee for National Security (KNB) announced plans to submit a strict new law, On Counteracting Terrorism, to Parliament that would replace the current law, adopted in 1999. At the time, the KNB stated the bill was included in the government's legislative plan and would be submitted to Parliament. At year's end, however, Parliament had not yet approved the new law. Kazakhstan's Prime Minister instructed the Minister of Finance to speed up drafting a bill on combating financing of terrorism in June, but the draft law on terrorist financing remained stalled in Parliament.

Kazakhstan strengthened its engagement in international counterterrorism activities:

• In March, the Government of Kazakhstan approved a treaty with the Government of the Slovak Republic on cooperation in fighting terrorism.

• In April, President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed two draft laws on counterterrorism activities within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

• In June, Kazakhstan hosted the first Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism field exercise, entitled "Anti-Atom Terror," which was attended by more than 15 partner nations. Additionally, more than 900 military, intelligence, law enforcement, and security personnel from Kazakhstan took part in organizing and conducting the exercise.

• In August, the Government of Kazakhstan approved the signing of a treaty with the Government of the United Arab Emirates on cooperation in fighting terrorism.

• In September, Kazakhstan hosted a "Design-Basis Threat" exercise attended by seven partners from the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.

• In October, Kazakhstan hosted the Common World Forum to promote intercultural and inter-religious dialogues.

Law enforcement actions against terrorists included:

• In February, a court in Stepnorgorsk sentenced two members of an extremist group to 12 years of imprisonment and six others to nine years of imprisonment for planning to commit terrorist attacks in the fall of 2006.

• In March, a court in Shymkent sentenced 15 members of a terrorist group, detained in April 2007, on charges of organizing terrorist acts against the local office of the Kazakhstani Committee for National Security (KNB), to prison terms ranging from 11 to 19 years. House searches of the convicts revealed hidden explosives, guns, ammunition, and extremist literature, along with a detailed plan of the local KNB building and a list with KNB officers' and their family members' home phone numbers and addresses.

• In November, police in the southern Zhambyl District of Almaty detained an Uzbek citizen, allegedly wanted for membership in religious extremist, separatist, and fundamentalist organizations. According to the Almaty Region's prosecutor, police placed the detainee under arrest, pending a decision on his extradition to Uzbekistan.

Kazakhstan promoted intercultural and religious dialogues designed to prevent radicalization and supported other domestic counterterrorism initiatives. In August, the Ministry of Interior and the People's Assembly of Kazakhstan signed a memorandum on cooperation in strengthening interethnic and interfaith relations within Kazakhstani society. In December, the Ministry of Justice opened an International Center of Culture and Religions to study the positive experience of interfaith and interethnic cooperation in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan also enacted five interagency regulatory legal acts regulating the counterterrorism activities of public bodies and conducted 149 interagency counterterrorism exercises and training programs.