"Cells of terrorist threats" have been neutralized, the National Security Committee said in a statement.
On January 10, 7.989 people were detained by Interior Ministry bodies, the ministry said in a post on the government's website.
Karim Masimov, former head of this powerful agency, was dismissed from office last week by President Qassim-Yomart Tokayev and has now been arrested on suspicion of treason.
Tokayev has shut down the country's government, given security forces permission to fire on protesters without warning and declared a state of emergency in the oil-rich nation of 19 million people. It has also asked the Russian-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to send troops to Kazakhstan to guard strategic facilities.
"I believe there was some kind of conspiracy involving some domestic and foreign destructive forces," Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerlan Karin said today, speaking on state television without naming anyone in particular.
The protests in Kazakhstan began a week ago as a protest against rising fuel prices, before evolving into a wider protest against the government of President Tokayev and his predecessor, 81-year-old Nursultan Nazarbayev. It was the deadliest outbreak of violence in Kazakhstan's 30 years of independence.
Russian and local media reported today that 164 people were killed during the riots, citing a government post on social media, but police and hospital authorities have not confirmed that number. The post has now been deleted. A day of national mourning has been declared today.
Internet access was restored today in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, a French News Agency correspondent found.
In the economic capital of the Central Asian country, a city of some 1.8 million people, access to domestic and international websites was again possible. Life was gradually returning to normal early in the morning, with public transport running again for the first time since the outbreak of violence.
Source: APE-MPA
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