The Internal Troops was formed by order of the President Nursultan Nazarbayev on 10 January 1992. It was the Kazakh successor to the Soviet Internal Troops and was formed on the basis of Internal Troops based in the Kazakh SSR. It immediately grew effective in its role in suppressing armed domestic conflicts that were mostly caused by terrorism. In March of that same year, the government founded the Republican Guard on the basis of a police unit of the Internal Troops deployed in the Kaskelen District of Almaty. The Internal Troops were disbanded on 21 April 2014 by government orders, transforming the once Soviet-era agency into the present-day National Guard.^[1][2][3][4]

The missions of the Kazakh Internal Troops are as follows:^[5][6]

• Guard important cargo during transportation
• Guard of corrective institutions and escort convicts and detainees
• Maintain of a social order and stop violations the law that risk the ensurance of public safety
• Maintain a state of alertness during national emergency situations (e.g. natural disasters)
• Dismantle illegal armed formations
• Prevent domestic and foreign terrorism on Kazakh soil

The Commander-in-Chief of the Internal Troops was the seniormost post in the Internal Troops, acting as the commanding officer of the entire branch. The incumbent was appointed and dismissed by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and reported directly to him/her through the Minister of Internal Affairs. The assistant to the commander-in-chief and the head of all the headquarters directorates was known as the Chief of Staff.

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