Kazakh authorities say they have detained eight Syrian nationals they said were caught using doctored Bulgarian passports when entering and leaving Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh National Security Committee's Border Control Service said six Syrians were detained on August 22 after they arrived from Tehran and produced "partially forged" Bulgarian passports at the Almaty airport.
The border service said that the pages identifying the men in the Bulgarian passports were replaced and some pages carried forged entry-exit stamps.
According to the border service, the men said they were attempting to travel to a country in the European Union.
It said that on August 21, two Syrian citizens were detained at the airport in the capital, Astana, with doctored Bulgarian passports, where they were trying to board a plane to London.
Those detained in Astana also said that they used Kazakhstan as a transit country to reach the United Kingdom.
Kazakh authorities have said that hundreds of Kazakh citizens have joined extremist groups including Islamic State in recent years, in some cases traveling to Syria or Iraq to fight alongside the militants.
