Suicide bomber attacks Kazakh oil city

ALMATY: Two blasts ripped through the oil hub city of Atyrau in western Kazakhstan on Monday, prosecutors said, killing one man described by media as a suicide bomber.

No one else was hurt in the attacks, which began just before 9 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) with a blast near an administrative building in the Caspian port city, about 2,500 km (1,553 miles) west of the Kazakh capital Astana.

An hour later there was a large blast near the offices of the city's prosecutors, police and national safety committee, regional prosecutors said.

"An unidentified man used an explosive device, making him die on the spot and breaking the windows of a nearby apartment building," they said in a statement.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has run Kazakhstan for 20 years, this month, signed a new religion law which bans prayer rooms in state buildings and requires all missionaries to register with authorities every year.

Analysts have warned that the brewing violence could signal an intensifying power struggle among security forces or a spillover of violence from neighbouring states. Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan to its south, is struggling with violence linked to Islamist jihadist ideology.