The Kazakh National Security Committee has shut down an underground print shop that was allegedly turning out literature for the illegal Muslim extremist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir in Shymkent,the head of the security committee office in South Kazakhstan Oblast Vladimir Nakisbaev told Interfax Kazakhstan. Shymkent is the administrative center of South Kazakhstan Oblast. Nakisbaev said that the secret print shop was discovered on 25 August during a series of raids intended to stop the activities of banned extremist groups. The apartment housing the print shop had been rented in February 2002 by three residents of neighboring Kyzyk Orda Oblast. Security officers found equipment for desktop publishing, a copier, and bookbinding equipment, as well as 600 leaflets and 250 books and magazines that had evidently been printed in the shop. (Interfax-Kazakhstan)