Urumchi Back in the News in a Bad Way

From The New York Times: China Reports Suspected Terrorist Activity By JIM YARDLEY and JAKE HOOKER Published: March 10, 2008 BEIJING — A Chinese passenger jet that departed Friday morning from the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang was forced to make an emergency landing after the flight crew apprehended at least two passengers who authorities say intended to sabotage the airplane, state media reported Sunday. A senior Chinese official also said Sunday that a police raid last January against a group in Xinjiang suspected of planning terrorist acts uncovered proof that the group was plotting an attack on the coming Beijing Olympics. Terrorism is usually not a significant threat in China, where the authoritarian government takes an unflinching approach toward maintaining social stability. But Chinese security officials are very concerned that terrorism poses a serious risk as Beijing prepares to be the host for the Olympic Games in August. The airplane incident came in the same week that a man armed with dynamite hijacked a private bus filled with Australian tour operators who were sightseeing in the city of Xian. A police sniper later killed the man, and few details have been released about him or his motives. None of the hostages were wounded. On Sunday, Wang Lequan, the Communist Party chief in Xinjiang, took a hard stance, saying that China would strike the “three evil forces” of terrorists, separatists and extremists. “We are prepared to strike them when the evil forces are planning their activities,” Mr. Wang said, according to Xinhua, the country’s state-run news service. Xinjiang is a vast northwestern region that is home to China’s population of 8.3 million Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim group with linguistic and cultural ties to neighboring central Asia. The region has long had tensions over cultural aspirations by some Uighurs for an independent state. In the past, China has blamed Uighur separatists for terrorist actions. Human rights groups have accused China of overstating any terrorist threat as a pretext for cracking down on the Uighurs. In January, the Chinese police attacked what the authorities said was a terrorist gang in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang. Two people were killed and 15 others arrested. Initially, few details were released about the raid. On Sunday, Mr. Wang said investigators had found knives, axes and books about terrorism in the raid. He said other materials suggested the group planned an Olympic attack, although no specifics were provided. “Obviously, the gang had planned an attack targeting the Olympics,” Mr. Wang told Xinhua in an interview conducted during the meeting of the National People’s Congress, the country’s Communist Party-controlled legislature. [Really? Based on the evidence of "knives, axes and books about 'terrorism' supposedly discovered in this 'raid?' The only 'gang' here is one described by a terrorist Communist government, hardly spot-free and not above planting evidence or just making up things to feed to the government-controlled media.] Mr. Wang said the gang had ties to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. The thwarted airplane attack was also disclosed on Sunday. Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region government, told state media that “some people were attempting to create an air disaster.” The incident occurred on a China Southern flight that departed Friday morning at 10:35 from Urumqi, heading for Beijing. But the plane was diverted to the city of Lanzhou after an onboard incident. A China Southern employee in Lanzhou confirmed that the airplane had been diverted to Lanzhou. The employee said the airport was initially told that the diversion was necessary because of “traffic control” problems. State media provided only a few details, noting that “the attackers were stopped in time by the air police, and all the passengers and crew members are safe.” Mr. Bekri suggested that more than one person was involved but declined to provide specifics, telling Xinhua that the authorities are investigating “who the attackers are, where they are from and what’s their background. “But we can be sure that this was a case intending to create an air crash,” he said. A China Southern employee at the Lanzhou airport confirmed that the airplane had been diverted to the city and that the incident had been handled by public security officers. The diversion was initially described as necessary because of “traffic control,” the employee said. One person with information about the incident said a Uighur woman apparently smuggled three containers of gasoline onto the flight. [How?] The person said that she took the containers into the bathroom and was later apprehended by members of the flight crew. That account seemed consistent with a Friday posting on a Chinese Internet chat room. The messages discussed a landing in Lanzhou and said that it had been discovered in mid-flight that people had brought gasoline on board and that four Uighurs had been led away after the plane landed. They appeared to be a first-hand account from a passenger sending messages via a hand-held device from the Lanzhou airport, but that could not be confirmed. nor could the identity of the person sending the messages. Zhang Jing contributed research.