Gunman kill four policemen, one civilian in Kazakhastan

Kazakh security services updated the death toll of an armed attack in the southern Kazakh city of Almaty on Monday to four policemen and one civilian.

According to the latest reports, two suspects have been detained.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs earlier said in a statement that the incident happened at around 11:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT), when armed men were trying to enter a local police office and opened fire on a policeman.

The gunmen then seized the automatic weapon of the policeman and tried to flee. They shot four other policemen with the stolen weapon during the escape attempt.

"The offenders tried to grab a car from a local resident of the city during the flee. As a result the driver was wounded and died," the statement said.

Another shootout occurred on a busy central street where police wounded and detained a separate attacker.

The security situation in Kazakhastan has been deteriorating recently. On June 5, unidentified assailants staged an armed robbery in the western Kazakh city of Aktobe, where three military officers and five civilians were killed. Endi