Kazakh security forces fired on by suspected militants behind Aktobe attack

ALMATY (Reuters) - Kazakhstan security forces were locked in a gunbattle on Friday with suspected "religious radicals" in Aktobe, the northwestern city where at least 20 people were killed in a militant attack days earlier. The National Security Committee (KNB) said in a statement law enforcers had hunted down gunmen suspected of carrying out Sunday's attack, but they had refused to surrender. "The terrorists have responded with armed resistance to a proposal to surrender," KNB said in a brief statement without providing any details. Authorities have not identified the group responsible for the Aktobe attack, but have described them as "religious radicals", a term commonly used in Kazakhstan to refer to Islamist militants. Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, said on Wednesday the attackers had received instructions from abroad and were adherents of a pseudo-religious movement, though he did not identify it. One of the men blamed by authorities for the attack, the deadliest in the country's history, had posted a video online that was sympathetic to Islamic State. (Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)