Kazakhstan, September 09: Thirteen people were missing on Tuesday after a Kazakh border patrol helicopter crashed in a remote region in the south of the Central Asian state, the state security services said.
Thirteen people are reported to have been lost after a Kazakh border patrol helicopter crashed in a remote region in the south of the Central Asian state on Tuesday.
All the missing are the board members of the state security service (KNB, ex- KGB) responsible for the state security.
“At 10:30 am (1000 IST) communication with the helicopter was lost,” the spokesperson of the state security services told on the condition of anonymity.
According to spokesperson, the Information of crash was conveyed by the workers of the Ugamsk forest service in the area of the Ugamsk Gorge, in the southern Kazygurtsk region.
The troops were headed to reinforce the border area with neighbouring Uzbekistan after Kazakhstan received information from Tashkent about an illegal armed group operating in the area.
The helicopter went down while conducting the operations.
“We received information from the border service of the National Security Services (SNB, ex-KGB) of Uzbekistan that six gunmen had planned to illegally cross the Kazakh-Uzbek border,” told the spokesperson of the agency.
A string of incidents, from a suicide bombing in Uzbekistan in May to gun battles with suspected militants in Tajikistan this summer, have ratcheted up tensions in this predominantly Muslim region which borders Afghanistan
–Agencies