Kazakhstan police cordoned off a site of a shooting after a series of attacks that killed at least three policemen and a civilian in the financial capital Almaty on Monday (July 16).

Officers and medics rendered assistance to a wounded policemen in a car.

Suspected Islamist militants targeted a district police station and an office of the KNB state security service. Another shootout occurred on a busy central street where police wounded and detained two of the attackers.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev convened an emergency meeting of his security council to discuss the attacks, his office said.

The attacks will stoke fears of a growing Islamist threat to the oil-producing nation of 18 million. Last month men the authorities described as Islamic State sympathisers attacked gun stores and a national guard facility, killing seven people.