U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism 2006 - Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan continued to aggressively combat terrorism and extremism locally and strengthened its cooperation and timeliness in sharing information with the United States. There was little movement, however, on counterterrorism legislation. The draft law on money laundering that the government has worked on since 2005 remained stalled in Parliament.

In January, authorities arrested a number of individuals from two extremist cells in Almaty on terrorism charges. Eight of those arrested remain in prison with trials ongoing. In November, authorities arrested eleven people from a terrorist group in Stepnogorsk and confiscated arms, explosives, and extremist printed materials. According to press reports, members of the terrorist group were planning hostage sieges, lethal attacks on state employees, and several explosions. In December, three Kazakhstani nationals were returned to Kazakhstan from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Kazakhstan continued to face a growing problem with the Islamic extremist group Hizb'ut Tahrir (HT). HT remained outlawed as an "extremist" organization through the Law on Extremism and continued to be the only group so designated under this law.

In November, the Government of Kazakhstan added the East Turkistan Liberation Organization and Aum Shinrikyo to the national list of banned terrorist organizations, accusing these groups of using terrorist means in an attempt to achieve an independent state in Central Asia and in China, respectively. The list of banned groups also included al-Qaida, the East Turkistan Islamic Party, the Kurdish People's Congress, Asbat al-Ansar, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, the Boz Gurd, Jamaat of Central Asian Mujahadins, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, the Social Reform Society, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and its splinter group, the Islamic Jihad Union.

In July, Kazakhstan became an initial partner nation in the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. Kazakhstan was one of the first countries to endorse and participate in the Global Initiative after its inception.

Kazakhstan, along with China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which established a Regional Antiterrorism Center in Tashkent. Kazakhstan is also a member of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Eurasia Group, a regional anti-money laundering organization modeled on the Financial Action Task Force, which has as its objective the integration of Kazakhstan, Belarus, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia, and Uzbekistan into the global system of anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.

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