AKTOBE, Kazakhstan -- Armed men suspected of being extremists went on the rampage in a town in Kazakhstan June 5, killing three civilians and three soldiers, the Interior Ministry said.
The co-ordinated attacks on two weapons stores and a military base in the western town of Aktobe triggered a major counter-terrorist operation with police clearing people from shopping malls and markets while public transport was shut down.
Four of the gunmen were killed by security forces and seven others arrested, ministry spokesman Almas Sadubayev told Interfax.
A civilian shop owner and a security guard were killed in the first gunshop that was targeted, while a customer was shot dead in the second firearms store, he was quoted as saying.
Gunmen also killed three soldiers as they tried to storm a military base.
The attackers were probably "extremists", he told AFP earlier.
It was not immediately clear how many suspects in total were involved the attacks in the mainly-Muslim Central Asian country, which came on the eve of the start of Ramadan.
Aktobe is a city of about 400,000 in western Kazakhstan.
