kazakhstan: Rioters, securitymen dead in Kazakhstan; Russia sends troops – Times of India

ALMATY: Fresh violence erupted in Kazakhstan’s main city on Thursday after Russia rushed in paratroopers overnight to put down a countrywide uprising in one of Moscow’s closest former Soviet allies. Police in the main city Almaty said they had killed dozens of rioters overnight.
The authorities said at least 18 members of the security forces had died, including two found decapitated. More than 2,000 people had been arrested. After a night of running confrontations between protesters and troops on the streets, a presidential residence in the city and its mayor’s office were both ablaze, and burnt out cars littered the city, Reuters journalists said.
Military personnel regained control of the main airport, seized earlier by protesters. Thursday eve-ning saw renewed battles in Almaty’s main square, occupied alternately by troops and hundreds of protesters throughout much of the day.
Oil production at Kazakhstan’s top field Tengiz was reduced on Thursday, its operator Chevron said, as some contractors disrupted train lines in support of the protests. The internet was shut down across the country, making it impossible to gauge the extent of the unrest. But the violence was unprecedented in a state ruled since Soviet times by Nursultan Nazarbayev, 81. His successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called in the Russian forces as part of a Moscow-led military alliance of ex-Soviet states. He blamed the unrest on foreign-trained terrorists who he said had seized buildings & weapons.