The Portrait of a Violent and Explosive "Olympic Host" -- China links
bombings in west to Olympics /IHT

International Herald Tribune

China links bombings in west to Olympics

By Jim Yardley
Sunday, August 10, 2008

BEIJING: The violence in the Western Chinese region of Xinjiang spiked
sharply Sunday morning with the deaths of at least seven suspects after
a daring series of bomb attacks that began with a predawn assault on a
police station, the state news media reported.

The attacks, coinciding with the first weekend of the Beijing Olympics,
happened less than a week after what the Chinese authorities had
previously described as China's worst terrorist attack in recent memory,
in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar. Sixteen paramilitary officers were
killed last Monday during their morning exercises, the authorities said,
after two Uighur Muslims rammed into them with a truck and assaulted
them with explosives and knives.

The spate of incidents comes as the Chinese authorities have accused the
East Turkestan Independence Movement, or ETIM, of trying to wage terror
attacks against the Olympics. ETIM is listed by the Chinese government
and the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group, though some
specialists on Xinjiang question the scope and potency of the group.
Some human rights groups accuse the Chinese government of exaggerating
the threat in an effort to justify its crackdown in the region against
Uighurs.

More recently, an obscure militant group, the Turkestan Islamic Party,
has released videos claiming responsibility for recent bus bombings in
southwestern China and has threatened to carry out attacks on the
Beijing Olympics. Last week, IntelCenter, a private U.S. group that
monitors terrorism, concluded that this group was the same as ETIM.

The violence on Sunday erupted in Kuqa, a county of 400,000 people in
the southern expanse of Xinjiang. None of the details could be
independently confirmed, though witnesses in Kuqa told news agencies of
hearing explosions Sunday morning. In all, the authorities said, 12
explosive devices were detonated in attacks on at least four local
government buildings, state media reported.

"I heard some bombs, and then I heard some machine guns," a Western
tourist in Kuqa told The Associated Press. "The bombs sounded like
thunder far away."

Xinhua, China's official news agency, described a series of attacks that
began at 2:30 a.m. when a vehicle was driven into the yard outside a
public security bureau and exploded. A security guard was killed and two
police officers and two civilians were wounded, Xinhua reported.

Police officers returned fire, shooting and killing one suspect and
capturing another one, as one assailant reportedly committed suicide.

Roughly six hours later, assailants began hurling homemade bombs at
government buildings in Kuqa, Xinhua reported. The police shot and
killed two more attackers and said three others had committed suicide.
One captured suspect told the police that 15 people were involved in the
attack. Investigators told Xinhua that the explosives were made of bent
pipes, gas canisters and liquid gas tanks. The police also seized a taxi
that the group was using for their attacks.

The local authorities cordoned off the city and shut down business and
government institutions. The police detained an AP reporter and a
photographer who were working outside the security perimeter near the
scene. They reported seeing a burned-out storefront from one explosion
and a three-wheel vehicle parked in front of the store that was
completely charred.

"This doesn't usually happen," a local resident told The AP. "It's
happening now because of the Olympics, but I don't know who is doing it."

A group of South Korean tourists and other visitors were said to be
trapped in the city.

Meanwhile, Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympic Organizing
Committee, blamed ETIM for the attacks. "The very purpose of these
attacks is all about separating the region from China," Wang said. The
attackers "want to use the Olympic stage to enlarge the impact," he said.

On Wednesday, the Turkestan Islamic Party released a video showing a
burning Olympic logo and warning Muslims not to go to the Games and to
keep their children from attending. The warning was presumably intended
to save any Muslims from violence that the group had planned to disrupt
the Games, which began Friday.

As proof of its claim that this group is also ETIM, IntelCenter, based
in Alexandria, Virginia, that monitors militants' Internet postings,
sent by e-mail a photograph of ETIM's supposed founder, Hasan Mahsum,
who was killed by the Pakistani Army in 2003.

IntelCenter said the photo had been found on the Web site of the
Turkestan Islamic Party and had the group's acronym, TIP, in the lower
right corner.

According to IntelCenter, the name ETIM has been used by China, the
United Nations and other organizations, but the Turkestan Islamic Party
never called itself that.

It originally called itself the East Turkestan Islamic Party, or ETIP,
but after a transformation from 1998 to 2000, it removed the "East" from
its name, IntelCenter said.

Several specialists on Xinjiang, where the militants presumably have
some support, say that the origins of ETIM are murky and that China may
be fabricating the threat to justify hard-line policies in its western
region.

In Xinjiang, many Muslim Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, resent
rule by ethnic Han Chinese. Some Uighurs have strongly advocated
independence.

The Turkestan Islamic Party released three video threats and one
five-page written threat from March 1 to last Thursday, IntelCenter
said. In a video released on July 23, a masked man identified as
Commander Seyfullah said TIP was responsible for bus bombings in Kunming
and Shanghai that killed five people and wounded at least 26.

In that video, Commander Seyfullah also threatened attacks during the
Olympics.

On Tuesday, Chinese officials in Kashgar said they had evidence that
ETIM planned to carry out a series of attacks to disrupt the Olympics.
The officials said that according to the plan, the attacks would start
in March or April and continue until the Games. They said that some of
those plans had been disrupted but that the deadly assault last Monday
had succeeded.

Edward Wong contributed reporting from Beijing.

International Herald Tribune Copyright

www.iht.com