4 militants reported killed in shootout in Kyrgyzstan

The Kyrgyz security service said it arrested five suspected global terrorists and killed two others here in the capital on Thursday in two special operations.

Security forces shot dead two more people in a separate raid in a suburb of the city, said Rakhat Sulaimanov, the spokesman for Kyrgyzstan’s committee for national security (GNKB). Local media reported that the group was comprised of citizens of Kazakhstan and that they were militants with the Islamic State group, but officials declined to confirm either of those claims.

The Kyrgyzstan authorities said that no civilians were hurt during the operation.

The same IS cell was planning to “organise terrorist acts in populated areas” of Bishkek today, when Kyrgyzstan celebrates the Muslim holiday of Eid that marks the end of the Ramadan fast, the security service said. To date, however, there have been no reports of such attacks.

At least 350 Kyrgyz nationals are now fighting in Syria among the ranks of Islamic State, the country’s authorities said in May.

The overwhelming majority of the locals recruited by IS are ethnic Uzbeks from the south, where Kyrgyzstan shares the fertile but overpopulated Ferghana Valley with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

“At the moment GKNB structures continue investigative and search actions to detect other active members and helpers of the terrorist underground”, it said.