The 2011 Aktobe bombing was a terrorist attack in the city of Aktobe, Kazakhstan on 17 May 2011. The attacker entered the headquarters of the National Security Committee in the region and set off a suicide bomb, killing himself and injuring two others.^[1] Initially, the bombing was blamed on "organized crime" in what was considered the first mafia-related suicide bombing in history. Some newspapers said that Rakhimjan Makhatov [ru], the bomber, was a member of an organized criminal group. However, Kazakhstani officials eventually conceded that the attack was probably linked to Islamic extremists in the oil-rich province. The attack marked the opening of a violent summer in Kazakhstan's west, during which multiple attacks claimed the lives of a combined 19 people.^[2]