Tuesday, May 24, 2011

things blowing up

one week ago, a suicide bomber attacked a KNB (the kazakhstani successor to the KGB) office in aktobe. authorities attributed the blast to organized crime, rather than religious extremism. but subsequent stories about the bomber made it less clear. but still, with just one incident and no one claiming responsibility, you couldn't really say whether the aktobe bombing was a lone nutjob or part of something bigger.

this morning a car bomb went off in front of a KNB office in astana. the explosion occurred at 3:30am, not a time that was likely to harm a lot of people. in fact, the only casualties were the two people in the car. KZBlog wonders if it wasn't just a screw up by KNB agents.

so what is the deal? i guess now we have a pattern, two explosions near different KNB offices. but beyond that i don't know what this means other than things are blowing up in kazakhstan (so far at least) in cities that i have been to.