“Almost 90 percent of the leaders of Kazakhstan youth consider themselves believers, with 86 percent of them professing Islam,” according to a survey conducted by sociologist Madina Nurgaliyeva and leading her to warn that “religiosity among young Kazakhstanis is at a critically high level.”

On June 28, three suicide bombers entered the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul, where they killed 45 people and injured 229. Although only one of the terrorist was from Russia (the other two were Uzbek and Kyrgyz), it is almost certain that that their last words to one another were in Russian. It is estimated that between 5,000 to 7,000 Russian-speaking jihadists have made Russian the second most popular language of ISIL, after Arabic.

Political divisions prevent the global community from reversing the rise of the Islamic State group, Kazakhstan's top diplomat said, urging world leaders to unite efforts to combat extremism.

The two students –Dias Kadyrbaev and Azamat Tazhayakov -- are facing federal charges that they obstructed the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 by allegedly disposing of a computer and backpack belonging to accused bomber Djokhar Tsarnaev. A hearing in their case is scheduled for May 14. If convicted, they face five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The Kazakhstani pair and Tsarnaev were constant companions for much of the past two years while taking classes at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, roughly 60 miles south of Boston, according to a criminal complaint filed in US District Court on May 1.

After two Kazakh students are charged with disrupting the investigation into the Boston bombing, residents from Kazakhstan defend their compatriots. The surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect exchanged text messages with a friend who had become suspicious after seeing what looked like a familiar face on television, authorities say. That friend and two others now stand accused of aiding the suspected bombers.