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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China breaks up terrorist cell in Xinjiang |
| 2010-06-25 |
| [Dawn] China has broken up a terrorist cell in the restive far western region of Xinjiang, an official said on Thursday, nearly a year after ethnic violence in the regional capital left around 200 dead. Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping said more than 10 members of a terrorist group who were planning attacks across Xinjiang, had been detained and explosives, knives and other equipment seized. "The breaking up of this large terrorist group once again proves that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement is the major terror threat facing China at present and henceforward," Wu said. Exile groups and many Uighurs, a Muslim people native to the region, refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan. Energy-rich Xinjiang is strategically located on China's borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and several Central Asian states. Wu identified the two ringleaders as Abdurixit Ablet, 42, and Imin Semaier, 33. The group had planned attacks in the Xinjiang cities of Kashgar, Hotan and Aksu, but their plans were thwarted and some of them fled, Wu said, reading from a prepared statement. But Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said the timing of the announcement was suspicious, coming so soon before the one-year anniversary of violent unrest in Xinjiang's regional capital, Urumqi. "China has a political motive in choosing the period before the July 5 anniversary to publicise this. The purpose is to raise pressure on Uighurs," he said by telephone. "The evidence given by the Chinese is all one-sided, with no independent verification and no credible proof." At least three of the group had smuggled themselves out of China and were repatriated last December, Wu said. Though he did not say where they had been repatriated from, Cambodia in December returned 20 Uighurs to China who they said had illegally entered the country. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang declined to name the country, but said the fight against terror needed international cooperation. "These groups are a threat to the security of the region, and the peace and stability of some areas of China," he told a news briefing. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement is listed by the United Nations as a terrorist organisation with links to al Qaeda. Beijing often blames what it calls violent separatist groups in Xinjiang for attacks on police or other government targets, saying they work with al Qaeda or Central Asian militants to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan. Uighur exiles accuse China of whipping up the threat posed by armed separatists to justify harsh crackdowns in the region. Next month marks the first anniversary of unrest in Urumqi, in which Uighurs attacked Han Chinese who sought revenge days later. The unrest left around 200 dead, mostly Hans. Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, chafe under Chinese rule and resent an influx of Han Chinese workers from eastern and central China. When the Olympic Games were held in Beijing in 2008, there were at least three attacks against police and paramilitary troops near Xinjiang's southern frontier city of Kashgar, which China attributed to Uighur separatists. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Message to Dilxat Raxit, "The evidence given by the Chinese is all one-sided, with no independent verification and no credible proof." - they dont care !! |
| Posted by: Oscar 2010-06-25 09:00 |