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ASTANA (AFP) - President Nursultan Nazarbayev urged his country's security forces to be on alert after a series of Islamist attacks on Central Asia's southern borders. The incursions were "a serious test that stands before Central Asia as a whole," said Nazarbayev, speaking at the opening session of the Kazakh parliament. "I am asking not only all of the country's security structures but also all branches of government in the provinces to be vigilant," he added. The tightened alert was prompted by the "worsening situation on the Commonwealth of Independent States' southern borders and the dramatic events taking place in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan," Nazarbayev said. He was referring to a series of incursions by Islamic rebels, allegedly trained in camps in Afghanistan, into the southern mountain border regions of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan this month. The fighters are said to belong to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which wishes to establish an Islamic state in Central Asia's Ferghana Valley. Although Kazakhstan has not suffered an armed incursion by the Islamists, the Central Asian region as a whole has been seriously shaken. Kazakh military officials announced last week that security had been stepped along the country's southern border following the appearance of some 15 Islamists in Uzbekistan, near the Kazakh and Kyrgyz border. |
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