Kyrgyz forces kill fugitive border guard after attack

BISHKEK (Reuters) - Kyrgyz security forces on Tuesday killed a fugitive border guard suspected of shooting dead five people at a remote frontier post, the border guard service of the former Soviet republic said.

Border guards and police found the lone gunman, named as Balbai Kulbarak uulu, in a mountain gorge near the Kyrgyz border with Kazakhstan a day after he fled the scene of the attack in a stolen vehicle.

The border guard service said in a statement that Kulbarak uulu was killed after putting up "armed resistance" to arrest.

Four soldiers, including the border post commander, and the wife of a serviceman were killed in Monday's attack. Three other border guards managed to escape after hearing the shooting.

The border guard service, a division of the State Committee for National Security, successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has not said why the accused border guard would have embarked upon such a killing spree. A military investigation is under way.

The assault follows the killing in late May of 14 Kazakh border guards and a herder at a remote post near Kazakhstan's frontier with China. The victims were shot and the border post set on fire.

The single surviving border guard admitted to the killings, though later withdrew his confession. Kazakh prosecutors said at the time that hazing, or severe military bullying, could have prompted that massacre.

(Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; Writing by Robin Paxton; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)