China confronts�its Uyghur
threat By Elizabeth Van Wie
Davis
A suicide bomb attempt on a plane
from the restive western region of Xinjiang in
China en route to the home of the 2008 Summer
Olympic Games in Beijing highlights a key security
dilemma for Beijing: the Olympics have become a
stage to showcase political grievances and a
challenge for the host to combat violent political
agendas.
While the Tibetan riots capture
the attention of the Western media, Chinese
officials say Uyghur militants are entering the
far western province of Xinjiang - particularly
across the isolated Pamir Mountains in the south
that separate China from Tajikistan and
Afghanistan - from training camps in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. The well-funded and well-schooled
militants allegedly obtain money and plans
directly from sponsors and from their involvement
in smuggling opium and heroin from Central and
Southeast Asia.
Uyghurs are the majority
ethnic group in Xinjiang and also have
a
�
large
diaspora community in the Central Asian republics,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the West. While there
is no uniform Uyghur agenda, the desired outcome
by groups that use violence is broadly a separate
Uyghur state, called either East Turkestan or
Uyghuristan, which lays claim to a large part of
western China and some territory in neighboring
Central Asian republics. As with many of these
disputes, the root causes of the problem are a
complex mix of history, ethnicity, and religion,
fueled by poverty, unemployment, social
disparities, and political grievances.
The
Uyghur Diaspora community portrays the ongoing
incidents as the oppressed Uyghur community versus
an oppressive and unaccountable Chinese
government, but reality lies somewhere in between.
While it is true that Uyghurs are at a
disadvantage in China, it is also a fact that a
small number of Uyghur militants are linked into
the transnational Islamist network contaminating
the image of the majority of the Uyghur movement.
The Chinese government's aversion to giving media
attention to terrorism is a reaction to the modern
media obsession with covering terrorist events,
which - like many experts - Beijing believes
contributes to terrorism's effectiveness.
China believes that it is an active
participant in the war on terrorism, although the
Chinese domestic focus on militant groups is much
more on police response than on military action.
This practice, however, allows voices such as
Rebiya Kadeer, head of the Uyghur American
Association, to pronounce the recent incidents as
having been fabricated by the Chinese government,
despite Western intelligence agencies' knowledge
of an al-Qaeda cell in Xinjiang as well as camps
in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have trained
Uyghur militants since the 1980s.
There
are also well-known links with the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and perhaps lesser
known links to current camps north of Kabul.
Unfortunately, some Uyghur militants in Xinjiang
and the diaspora community have linked into the
Islamist network, which operates within a corridor
that overlaps drug trafficking routes and
facilitates the movement of militants, weapons and
explosives.
Some in the Uyghur community
see the Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to draw
attention to their causes, whether it is
nationalist activists nonviolently or violently
agitating for a Uyghur state, or the cultural
community asking for more opportunities within the
Chinese state or the militant community looking to
the Islamist network to further their cause - this
is a thin but bold line to draw between these
groups for the Chinese government.
Four
recent incidents highlight the problem for China
regarding Uyghur groups: First, a January 5, 2007,
Chinese raid on a training camp in Xinjiang that
killed 18 militants and one policeman and led to
the capture of 17 suspects and the seizure of
explosives. The raid seemingly provided new
evidence of ties to "international terrorist
forces" [1]. Apparently an hour-long video
entitled "Jihad in Eastern Turkestan" was found in
the operation. Mentioned in the video was the book
The Call for Global Islamic Resistance by
al-Suri, which includes China as a target for
jihad.
The video, believed to be the work
of the overseas-based East Turkestan Islamic
Movement (ETIM), now internationally identified as
a terrorist group, illustrates Uyghur militants
displaying their weapons and combat training
prowess with rocket-propelled grenades, M-16s,
AK-47s, detonators and small rockets. It was
obviously inspired by the transnational Islamist
network.
In a dramatic conclusion, the
video showcases the faces of their enemies - the
Chinese leadership [2]. Moreover, Dr Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the prominent al-Qaeda leader, also
mentioned China in a speech he made in December
2006. Clearly there are some militants that have
decided to take an extremist stance against China
and it is not a great stretch for them to look at
the Olympics as a possible venue to showcase their
cause.
In the second incident, almost
exactly a year later, the Chinese police raided an
apartment in Urumqi and killed two Uyghurs during
the ensuing shoot-out on January 27, 2008. Fifteen
Uyghurs were arrested and, according to the
official report, five police officers were injured
when three homemade grenades were thrown. Chinese
authorities claim that the raid had uncovered
materials indicating plans to attack the Beijing
Olympics. More facts on this raid will likely be
forthcoming over the course of the next year.
The third incident involves a failed
female suicide attack apparently planned and
implemented in a Uyghur diaspora community. China
Southern Airlines Flight CZ6901 left Urumqi, the
capital of Xinjiang, on March 7, 2008, and made an
emergence landing in Lanzhou, Gansu, where two
passengers - a man and a woman - were taken into
custody, both carrying Pakistani passports.
Nineteen-year-old Guzalinur Turdi, an
ethnic Uyghur woman who spent a significant amount
of time in Pakistan, confessed to attempting to
ignite a flammable substance, perhaps petrol,
syringed into a beverage can, in an attempt to
blow up the plane. She aroused the suspicions of
the crew and passengers when she came out of the
toilet smelling of petrol to pick up a second can
after the first can failed to ignite. The man
arrested with her is from Central Asia and his age
is estimated to be in the 30s. A third suspect, a
Pakistani, detained a week later, admitted that he
had masterminded, instigated and helped carry out
the attack.
Pakistan is one of several key
locations for militant diaspora communities and
has also seen the assassination of Chinese
nationals by Uyghurs. For instance, three Chinese
nationals working just outside of Peshawar were
killed and another seriously wounded as militants
fired at the Chinese nationals from two cars,
while fellow militants in the third car filmed the
action shouting religious slogans; the film was
sent to Chinese authorities by Uyghur militants
warning that attacks would continue against
Chinese in Pakistan if it did not change its
policy in Xinjiang.
Pakistani officials
suggest that nearly a thousand Uyghur militants
from Xinjiang region have made their way to
Waziristan [3], not far from where US intelligence
agencies believe Osama bin Laden is sheltered. The
airliner suicide attack, by no means coincidental,
occurred on the eleventh anniversary of a bus
explosion claimed by ETIM, in Beijing near
Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), and both happened during
the National People's Congress (NPC) annual
session. The carefully planned attack, from using
a young Uyghur woman to boarding through the less
scrutinized first class, was designed to deliver a
clear warning to the Chinese government as the
world watched the lead up to the Beijing Olympics.
The fourth and most recent incident was a
pair of protests in the market town of Hotan,
Xinjiang, around March 23. One protest was
apparently sparked by the death in custody of a
prominent local businessman, Mutallip Hajim, and
the other protest centered on a proposed headscarf
ban in the workplace. While the original protests
were based on specific incidents that have
widespread appeal among the Uyghur cultural
community, the government alleges that several
dozen Uyghur militants distributed leaflets
calling for demonstrators to follow the lead of
the Tibetans in protesting on the eve of the
Olympics.
Some of those arrested were
released after being "educated", according to Fu
Chao, a local government spokesman, but those
determined to be agitators were kept in custody.
The demonstrations are indicative of the
widespread dissent in Xinjiang's Uyghur community
and how quickly that dissent can become explosive
with only a little agitation, although it is not
clear in this set of protests whether the
agitators were Uyghur militants or Uyghur national
activists.
The incidents, while indicative
of both a small but dedicated number of Uyghur
militants and a wider sense of oppression and
discontent among the Uyghur community, are
countered by the most heavily protected Olympics
yet. The International Olympic Committee is
overseeing the Beijing Games, where the security
force will be large. Beijing has nearly 100,000
police, supplemented by paramilitary outfits,
private security guards and the country's
military.
The People's Liberation Army's
(PLA) new Olympics unit, comprising army, navy and
air force personnel, is responsible for border
control - to prevent terrorists and others
infiltrating during the Games - as well as
responding to terrorist attacks. It is enlisting a
citizens' force of a half million civic-minded
Beijing citizens, either wearing red or blue
Olympic security armbands, who will monitor
streets, neighborhoods and public places.
Tellingly, Xi Jinping, heir apparent to
President Hu Jintao, is in charge of the overall
Olympic effort, signaling how seriously the
government takes the success of the Games.
Professor Zhang Jiadong, counter-terrorism expert
at Fudan University, suggested that it is not
unexpected for small Uyghur groups based in
Xinjiang to undertake some limited action.
Interpol's secretary-general, Ronald Noble,
indicated in Beijing in September 2007 that the
absence of a terrorist incident or serious
criminal activity would be an "important measure"
of the success of the Games, and the agency's
website says that the Beijing Games are a "prime
theoretical target for al-Qaeda and other
terrorist groups".
But both Interpol and
the International Olympic Committee have said thus
far that they are satisfied with China's security
preparations, and the incidents so far indicate a
tangible threat and a real counter effort.
Notes 1.
Kenneth George Pereire, "The East Turkestan
Islamic movement in China: Uighur discontent must
be addressed to stem the tide of the jihadi
movement in China," Institute of Defence and
Strategic Studies (June 23, 2006). 2. Realities
of the Conflict - Between Islam and Unbelief Full
Transcript of Zawahiri Tape December 20, 2006
As-Sahab Media, Dhu Qa'dah 1427 AH/December 2006
CE, obtained by Laura Mansfield International
Institute for Counter-Terrorism. 3. Fong
Tak-ho, 'Terror' attack a warning shot for
Beijing, Asia Times
Online, March 14, 2008.
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