Two militants killed in Kyrgyzstan shootout with police

Kyrgyzstan said today that two militants were killed and one was injured in a shootout with police who also claimed to have foiled a terror plot in the Central Asian country.
Kyrgyzstan's State National Security Service (GKNB) claimed its officers killed two members of "an armed terrorist group" that had planned attacks ahead of the former Soviet Republic's independence day.
One accomplice of the pair was hospitalised in the clash, while another suspected plotter had been detained the day before, the GKNB said in a statement.
The same group had threatened traffic police with a pistol and a grenade after being pulled over for a routine inspection last week before driving off, the GKNB said.

In photos released by the security service, two corpses appear to be lying in a field along with a knife and a firearm.
The GKNB said the group was planning attacks in the capital Bishkek and surrounding region using "homemade explosives" during the independence holiday beginning August 31.

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked majority-Muslim country of six million people, regularly claim to have foiled terror plots without offering convincing evidence.
Although the country has seen relatively few terrorist incidents in its 26 years of independence an apparent suicide attack targeting China's embassy in the country set alarm bells ringing in August last year.

At least three people were wounded when a vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded after ramming through a gate at the embassy in the capital Bishkek.
A Kyrgyz court in June sentenced three Kyrgyz nationals for their alleged roles in organising the attack.