Jan. 8 (UPI) —<\/span> Authorities have arrested the recently ousted head of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, Karim Massimov, on suspicion of treason amid unrest after spike in gas prices.<\/p>\n The intelligence agency, a successor to the Soviet Committee for State Security, or KGB, said in a statement Saturday obtained by The New York Times that Massimov was arrested on Thursday, a day after Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev removed him from the NSC chairman post.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n Massimov, who served as prime minister of Kazakhstan under former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was arrested along with several other officials, according to the agency.<\/p>\n His dismissal and arrest comes amid deadly clashes this week in anti-government protests in response to fuel price spike that spread to Almaty, the country’s largest city.\n<\/p>\n Tokayev ordered police Friday to open fire “with lethal force” and without warning on protesters, who he called violent bandits and terrorists.<\/p>\n The violence in Almaty’s streets between anti-government protestors and police largely subsided overnight Friday, according to The Washington Post.<\/p>\n Still, dozens of protesters and at least 18 officers were killed in the clashes, which began over rising fuel prices but also signaled wider discontent for government among citizens.\n<\/p>\n Tokayev had also appealed earlier this week for a Russian-led military alliance to send peacekeepers to the country amid a state of emergency in the capital city Nur-Sultan, along with Almaty, after protests turned violent.<\/p>\n Since then, about 2,500 Russian-led troops have arrived in the country, BBC News reported.<\/p>\n Also, officials have shut off Internet access as demonstrators demanded the ouster of the authoritarian government.\n<\/p>\n U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has questioned the Russian neighbor and former Soviet republic’s decision to seek Russian military aid to deal with the civil unrest.<\/p>\n “One lesson of recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave,” Blinken told reporters at a State Department briefing Friday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Karim Massimov (C), recently ousted chairman of the National Security Council of Kazakhstan, has been arrested. File Photo by Kensburo Fukuhara\/EPA-EFE Jan. 8 (UPI) — Authorities have arrested the recently ousted head of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, Karim Massimov, on suspicion of treason amid unrest after spike in gas prices. The intelligence agency, a successor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":740838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-740837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kazakhstan:](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Kazakhstan-Authorities-arrest-ex-intelligence-chief-on-accusations-of-treason.jpg\" "\\"Kazakhstan:")
\n<\/div>\nKarim Massimov (C), recently ousted chairman of the National Security Council of Kazakhstan, has been arrested. File Photo by Kensburo Fukuhara\/EPA-EFE<\/p>\n