Smoke is seen billowing from the Chinese embassy building in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on August 30, 2016. [Photo: People's Daily]

Fourteen Kyrgyz officers from the border service and Interior Ministry have been arrested for suspected trafficking of weapons involved in the suicide car bomb attack on the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan in August, China News Service reports.

The Russian news agency Interfax, quoting Kyrgyz official sources, said that according to investigators, officers sold weapons to the criminal gangs which conducted the terror attacks on the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan and against a Kyrgyz prosecutor earlier this year.

Kyrgyz media is reporting that the country's Deputy Interior Minister briefed the media last Friday, saying that apart from several serving and retired border service officers, a director of the Interior Ministry is also involved.

The case had been sent to the military procuratorate, said the deputy minister, who added that no further details could be revealed since the case is still under investigation.

According to Russian and Kyrgyz media, police arrested an arms trafficker last month, who was the driver of chairman of the Kyrgyz State Defense Committee, and found several AK series rifles and a large amount of ammunition at his home.

The trafficker confessed that one of his suppliers was a border service officer. Subsequent investigations revealed that many other officers were also involved.

Apart from those arrested, a further 26 officers have been dismissed for their suspected involvement.

Interfax is reporting that the Kyrgyz central office of the General Staff of the Armed Forces has found that 26 automatic rifles, 14 guns and 13,000 items of ammunition had gone missing from its stores.

The Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan was attacked on August 30 by a suicide car bomber, in which the lone assailant was killed and five others were wounded. The compound also suffered damage.

On June 29, a senior prosecutor from the Kyrgyz Supreme Procuratorate was seriously injured after explosives were placed in his car.