Bishkek: Kyrgyz special forces on Thursday launched a fresh raid to capture the former president, an official said, a day after an attempt to storm his compound left one officer dead and a police chief in a critical condition. Central Asian Kyrgyzstan, which has seen two revolutions in less than two decades, is on the brink of full-blown political crisis amid a standoff between ex-leader Almazbek Atambayev and his protege-turned-foe President Sooronbai Jeenbekov. On Wednesday the confrontation escalated when the security service announced an operation to seize Atambayev from his compound outside Bishkek, capital of the Muslim-majority nation of six million people.

Now "a second raid has just begun," lawmaker Irina Karamushkina, an ally of Atambayev's in contact with his compound, told AFP by telephone on Thursday. Around a thousand police and special forces officers were taking part, while the same number of supporters of Atambayev were defending the residence, she said. Atambayev has ignored police summonses for questioning on corruption charges that supporters say are politically motivated. He announced a rally for later on Thursday, in the same area of the capital where his supporters gathered at the start of a popular uprising in 2010. Kyrgyzstan's people "will never live on their knees, will not be collective farm sheep, will not be slaves of the ruling clan," he said in a broadcast on the television channel he owns.