Kazakhstan confirmed on Saturday the death in Russia of two of its citizens in an anti-terrorist operation carried out this week by Moscow, which claimed to have prevented an attack against a synagogue in the Russian capital.
On Thursday, the Russian security services (FSB) claimed that this operation had been carried out in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, and had targeted suspected members of a branch of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
Russian media said two suspects who were shot were from Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, and had arrived in Russia in late February.
“The Kazakh citizenship and arrival in Russia of these (two) people is confirmed
,” indicated the National Security Committee (KNB) of Kazakhstan, in a press release published on Saturday, in reaction to these press reports.
The KNB specifies that an investigation by the Kazakh authorities is underway in
“close contact”
with the FSB.
Risks of “extremists”
The FSB claimed Thursday to have put an end to the activities of a cell of the Islamic State-Khorasan (EI-K), a regional branch particularly active in Afghanistan.
For its part, the American embassy in Moscow advised its fellow citizens in Russia on Thursday to avoid large gatherings in the capital for the next 48 hours, saying it feared imminent
"extremist"
projects , a few days before the presidential election in Russia.
Russian authorities had already announced last Sunday that they had killed six suspected fighters from the IS group in Ingushetia (south), in the Russian Caucasus.
ISIS's influence remains limited in the country although some attacks have occurred in recent years, particularly in the Muslim-majority Caucasus republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
Nearly 4,500 Russians, particularly from the Caucasus, fought alongside IS, according to official figures.