BISHKEK -- A Kyrgyz police officer has been arrested on charges of selling weapons to terrorists.
The Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on January 21 that the police officer was detained on January 17 in the southern region of Jalal-Abad after a suspected terrorist who was detained with guns and ammunition named the officer as a weapons supplier.
Kyrgyz authorities have raised concerns about an increasing number of attacks against police that have been carried out by Islamic extremists in recent months.
Authorities in the mainly Muslim former Soviet republics of Central Asia say hundreds of their citizens have fought alongside Islamic State (IS) militants and other extremists in Syria and Iraq.