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Kyrgyz Forces Kill Fugitive Border Guard After Attack

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyz security forces on Tuesday killed a fugitive border guard suspected of shooting dead five people at a remote frontier post, the Kyrgyz border guard service said.

Border guards and police found the lone gunman, named as Balbai Kulbarak uulu, in a mountain gorge near the Kyrgyz border with Kazakhstan a day after he fled the scene of the attack in a stolen vehicle.

The border guard service said in a statement that Kulbarak uulu was killed after putting up "armed resistance" to arrest.

Four soldiers, including the border post commander, and the wife of a serviceman were killed in Monday's attack. Three other border guards managed to escape after hearing the shooting.

The border guard service, a division of the State Committee for National Security, successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has not said why the accused border guard would have embarked upon such a killing spree. A military investigation is under way.

The assault follows the killing in late May of 14 Kazakh border guards and a herder at a remote post near Kazakhstan's frontier with China. The victims were shot and the border post set on fire.

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