At least 18 dead in attack in China's Xinjiang

[Rashna]

At least 18 dead in attack in China's Xinjiang


BEIJING: At least 18 people are dead after ethnic Uighurs attacked police with knives and bombs at a traffic checkpoint in China's western Xinjiang region, Radio Free Asia reported on Wednesday.

The attack occurred on Monday in a district of the southern city of Kashgar, where tensions between Muslim Uighurs that call the region home and the majority Han Chinese have led to bloodshed in recent years.

Suspects killed several police officers with knives and bombs after speeding through a traffic checkpoint in a car in Kashgar's Tahtakoruk district, US-based Radio Free Asia said, citing Turghun Memet, an officer at a nearby police station.

Armed police responded to the attack and killed 15 suspects "designated as terrorists," Radio Free Asia cited Memet as saying.

The attack comes at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a sensitive time in Xinjiang after an uptick in attacks over the past three years in which hundreds have died, blamed by Beijing on Islamist militants.

Repeated calls to the Xinjiang government news office were not answered. Such incidents are frequently reported in overseas media but not confirmed by the Chinese government until days later, if ever.

Exiled Uighur groups and human rights activists say repressive government policies in Xinjiang, including controls on Islam and on Uighur culture, have provoked unrest, a claim that Beijing denies.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...k-in-Chinas-Xinjiang/articleshow/47794723.cms

 

[Rashna]

China blocks India on Lakhvi in the UN and yet supports pakistan sponsored terrorism... the chinese may one day have to carry out operations in their border areas all thanks to their tacit support to the pakis.

 

[sydsnyper]

I only see this end up as an unresolved tug of war between the commies and the believers. With growing Chinese interest in Africa, middle east and afpak, such incidents could turn the tide against them. But then again, the Chinese government has a certain sense of wilyness which make the outcome hard to predict.

 

[Illusive]

Its sad really, as much rotten CCP is by protecting pak terrorists against India, its weird that we are not in the same page when we both suffer the same fate and know who is responsible for it. A simple situation made complex by chinese arrogance.

 

[SANITY]

Chinese police shoot dead three 'terror' suspects in Xinjiang

Chinese police shot dead three "violent terror" suspects in the western Xinjiang region, the government said on Monday, the latest clash with Islamist militants who the government says want to break the region away from China.

The government says separatists in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur minority, aim to form their own state called East Turkestan, and have links with militants abroad, including in Asia and the Middle East.

Security officers in the southern Xinjiang city of Hotan, a one-time Silk Road outpost considered part of the Uighur heartland, encountered violent resistance late on Sunday while pursing three members of a "violent terror gang", the Xinjiang government said on the Tianshan Net official news site.

"We shot the thugs dead at the scene. There were no casualties on our side," the government said.

The suspects were wanted in connection with an incident in April 2015, it said, but did not give details.

Hundreds of people have been killed in recent years in resource-rich Xinjiang, on the borders of central Asia and Pakistan, in violence between Uighurs and ethnic majority Han Chinese.

The government has blamed the unrest on militants, though rights groups and exiles say anger at Chinese controls on the religion and culture of Uighurs is more to blame for the violence. China denies any repression in Xinjiang.

Xinjiang had been generally quiet in recent months, with no major violence reported.

But in December, state media said attackers drove a vehicle into a government building in Hotan, setting off an explosive device and killing two people with knives before all three assailants were shot dead.

The government has delayed reporting some previous incidents in Xinjiang and limits on foreign journalists working there make it almost impossible to reach an independent assessment of the region's security.

An attack on a coal mine in September 2015, in which at least 16 people were killed, was not reported by the government for two months. It then announced its security forces had killed 28 of the "terrorists" involved.

 

[SANITY]

China's Xinjiang tightening border amid terrorist threats

BEIJING (AP) — China is tightening border controls in its northwestern Xinjiang region amid rising terrorism threats, the regional governor was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

State media reported Shohrat Zakir made the pledge in a speech at the region's main annual political meeting on Monday, saying increased measures taken in the last year would be further strengthened.

The crackdown seeks to prevent suspected insurgents both from leaving Xinjiang to fight abroad and from returning to the region after receiving military training overseas, the official China Daily newspaper said.

Xinjiang has long been home to a simmering insurgency against Beijing's rule waged by extremists among the native Turkic-speaking Uighur (WEE-gur) ethnic group, who are mainly Muslim and culturally distinct from most Chinese. Many Uighurs already face onerous restrictions on where they can work and travel to, including extreme difficulties in obtaining passports.

Xinjiang shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan and four nations in the often volatile Central Asian region, whose native populations share ethnic, linguistic and religious links with Uighurs. Uighur extremists have also been reported to have joined the fighting in Syria and were blamed for a deadly attack on a Buddhist temple in Thailand.

Xinjiang has been smothered in heavy security since deadly riots in 2009 that pitted Uighurs against ethnic Han Chinese migrants in the regional capital of Urumqi. Those measures were tightened further following a wave of attacks blamed on Uighur separatists striking in Xinjiang and other parts of China, including the capital Beijing.

While such incidents have largely been curtailed, three knife-wielding assailants last month attacked staff at a Communist Party office in southern Xinjiang's Hotan region and set off an explosive device, killing two and injuring three others. The attackers were then shot dead by police.

The incident was the first publicly reported fatal attack in months in Xinjiang, where information is strictly controlled and reporting access highly limited.

Prior to that, police in November 2015 killed 28 people who authorities said had killed 11 civilians and five police officers at a remote Xinjiang coal mine controlled by members of China's main Han ethnic group.

Additionally, a Chinese state media outlet reported that three alleged assailants wanted in relation with a 2015 terrorist incident in Hotan were killed in a police raid on Sunday. No details were given.

Beijing's critics say the violence in Xinjiang is prompted by government policies that have marginalized Uighurs in their native region, which has seen a massive influx of Han Chinese who dominate the local economy, security forces and civil service. Some Uighurs are also believed to have been radicalized by extremist jihadi ideologies that have spread from Central Asia to the Middle East.

 

[Mikesingh]

More power to the Uighurs!

 

[OrangeFlorian]

I wager the Grey Wolves were behind this

 

[3deffect]

INDIA SHOULD SUPPORT Uighurs FREEDOM FIGHTER

 

[SANITY]

INDIA SHOULD SUPPORT Uighurs FREEDOM FIGHTER

We should support the Tibetans first.

 

[vinuzap]

uighurs are allready getting support of turkish intelligence , saudi and qatar

the more china goes in pak and africa(islamic belt) more trouble ahead

as soon as CPEC started frequency of attack by uighurs have increased in last couple of months

 

[vinuzap]

and here it was coming :

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...istan-to-curb-terror/articleshow/56468455.cms

China to seal border with Pakistan to curb terror

BEIJING: The head of the Xinjiang government was quoted by the official Xinuha news agency on Tuesday as saying that security along the China-Pakistan border would be further tightened "to prevent terrorists from entering or leaving the region illegally in 2017".

This is being seen as China's signalling its displeasure with Pakistan over its inability to stop terrorists from sneaking into its restive border region of Xinjiang.


Xinjiang Communist Party leaders expressed fears of militants getting training in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and returning to the province to carry out terror attacks. The statements followed a raid in which three terrorists in Xinjiang's Hotan prefecture were killed on Sunday; the action followed a terrorist attack on December 28 in Hotan that killed five people.

Speaking at the regional People's Congress, Xinjiang chairman Shohrat Zakir said that the government has stepped up its efforts in entry-exit system to curb illegal movement of people across the border. Officials including the Communist Party head of Kashgar prefecture, which borders Pakistan, too stressed on the need to check illegal infiltration from Pakistan.




Terrorists who carried out attacks in the region in recent years received training abroad and returned illegally, said Aniwar Turson, a Communist Party official in Kashgar. Xinhua said, " Xinjiang has been China's main battleground in the fight against terrorism+ ," adding that suspects were killed when they resisted arrest.


Foreign ministries of China and Pakistan talk of all-weather friendship. But there has been growing concern among politicians in Xinjiang, the target of Islamist terrorism, about close links between local terrorists and Taliban camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.