Riot participants made two attempts to seize the Koktobe TV tower in Almaty, Deputy Head of the Kazakh Presidential Administration Dauren Abayev told the Khabar 24 state TV channel, Report informs.
The attackers were repulsed by border guards.
“There have been several attempts to go live on central television,” the official added.
Earlier on January 7, a representative of the Almaty commandant’s office said that terrorists had barricaded themselves in the building of the Mir TV channel on Republic Square. It was also reported about the shelling of a telegroup in the city, the driver was killed.
According to Abayev, the protests in the city began on January 3 and were initially peaceful.
“The police, the National Guard, didn’t use firearms against the protesters. However, later the voices of peaceful protesters drowned in the provocateurs’ calls for violence and riots. They were engaged in looting, and the second organized group of terrorist militants carried out targeted attacks on weapons stores, took away communications from the police. The invaders acted professionally. First of all, they seized and destroyed the city’s administrative buildings, the offices of TV channels in Almaty,” he said.
He added that there were snipers among the terrorists who shot at the security forces.