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Seven terror cells smashed in Muslim west China: state media
Beijing (AFP) June 3, 2009 Chinese police have smashed seven terror cells so far this year in the country's predominantly Muslim far-western region of Xinjiang, state media reported on Wednesday. The China Daily said the cells were uncovered in Kashgar, China's westernmost city and a key centre of culture for Uighurs, the Muslim ethnic group that has long bridled under Chinese rule. No further details about the cells were given by the newspaper, which attributed the information to Zhang Jian, the city's Communist Party chief. But it quoted Zhang as saying the region faced an ongoing threat from terrorists who "remote control" local operatives from abroad via the Internet. "Now the battle against terror has extended to the virtual world as the terrorists use the Internet as their tool to spread their radical ideas," he said. China has long claimed it faces a deadly threat from Muslim separatists as justification for extremely tight controls in Xinjiang, a region of vast deserts and towering mountains that borders central Asia. However, Uighur exile groups accuse Beijing of inflating the threat as an excuse to suppress their culture and ethnic identity. Xinjiang is home to about eight million Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group. Zhang was quoted as saying Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road trading post, has seen 350 attacks resulting in the deaths of 60 government officials and civilians "since the 1990s." In April, China executed two Uighur men in Kashgar for what it calls a "terrorist" attack last August in the city aimed at sabotaging the Olympics and that left 17 policemen dead, state media reported. The incident was the most serious in a wave of unrest in Xinjiang ahead of and during the Beijing Olympic Games. China arrested almost 1,300 people for terrorism, religious extremism or other state security charges in the region last year, state media reported in January. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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