BEIJING: A militant group has claimed responsibility for multiple deadly attacks in China's far-western Xinjiang region and its leader has threatened more violence to avenge what he called "the Chinese occupation," according to a US-based intelligence monitoring group.
The video statement, allegedly by the leader of the Turkistan Islamic Party, Sheikh Abdul Shakoor Damla, was posted on jihadist forums on Tuesday, the SITE intelligence group said on Wednesday.
The statement follows a series of deadly attacks in July in the southern city of Kashgar and the desert city of Hotan in Xinjiang that killed more than 30 people.
"All the policies practised by the Chinese communist government against the Muslims in East Turkestan aim at completely maiming the identity of the Muslims and their strong traditions," Damla, dressed in a white shirt with a black turban, with a rifle next to his side, said in the roughly 10-minute video, according to an English transcript.
"The jihadi operations in the provinces of Hotan and Kashgar are merely acts of revenge against the atheist communists, who fought the religion of Allah the Almighty publicly and openly."
Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the video.
China pointed the finger at Islamic radicals and separatists for those two incidents, though rights groups and exiles say oppressive government policies which stoked popular anger were more to blame.
Liu Weimin, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said on Thursday that he had not seen the video, but China believes "that at present there are some East Turkestan forces, including terrorists, who aim to split China, and who continue to stir up sentiments of ethnic confrontation".
Governing Xinjiang has proved a major headache for China's ruling Communist Party. Tensions erupted into violent clashes between majority Han Chinese and native Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009.
Since then, Beijing has turned its attention to boosting development in Xinjiang and providing greater job opportunities for the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people, many of whom chafe at Chinese rule and restrictions on their culture.
The government has blamed the violence in Xinjiang on groups like the "East Turkestan Islamic Movement" (ETIM), designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States in 2002.
Beijing says separatists work with al Qaeda or militants among other Turkic ethnic groups in ex-Soviet Central Asia over the border to seek an independent state called East Turkestan.
However, many experts have expressed doubts about the influence and reach of these groups and have questioned their ability to mastermind attacks in Xinjiang.
Last month, state media reported that authorities had thwarted attacks by suspected Uighur militants ahead of a visit by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari for a trade fair in Urumqi.
COMMENTS (43)
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China India Pakistan must have a unified and well balanced approach in handling minorities. Each have a fair portion of the others in their territory. Peace in Asia depends on it and one should expect USA/west to do all in their power to make it more difficult for the trio.
China follows the American way of life. It is increasingly Westernised. Chinese women frequently use cosmetic surgery to look more Caucasian. They have nothing in common with Muslims or Hindus. Their cities look Western. American investors throng China and China is a major supplier of goods and services to America and the West. The Chinese look to the West in everything they do. The depend on the West completely for cultural and economic direction, like the Japanese. At best, the relationship with the Islamic world is tokenistic and opportunistic. Am I missing something in this China/Pakistan brotherhood?
And yes, I am Hindu and proud for my race (the Indic race which includes Arabs) to do well and be united. I most certainly see no point in playing the divide and rule card with another race, especially one that has a organic ties with the West as do the East Asians. Xinjiang is just another pawn in the growing wealth enjoyed by East Asia. The Arabs, Pakistanis and Indians, as usual, squabble amongst themselves as the whiteman and Oriental divide the world between themselves. Our children deserve better.
@true: So what happened after that? Did China attack or threaten sanctions against US?
Why I have a feeling that its CIA on the back to gain China's support to help US to finish the task which US is miserably failing to do so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-TSitLABeo&feature=related Watch and share Chinese terrorists killing unarmed innocent Muslims
mr zamid dont talk rubbish
Ok, so here is the summary
It is an Indian job, backed by US and Israel to cause problems between Pakistan and China.
@Earthly: yaa, you are right, and even Bin laden was a RAW agent, and that was a drama played by India to defame pakistan, haha
Tricky Situation !!!
To support Friend? or Brother?
Friend is more powerful and importantly our well wisher.
Brother? He can be tackled later.
As of now, Friend is more important than Brother.
All of us should support China for our progress.
Call me a fake name too like Mr. Akhtar. But what was wrong in his question ? We are becoming so hypocrite that we call Kashmir muslim's problem issue as our's while we conveniently ignore our muslim brother's struggle elsewhere as their own headache ? This just proves that our world revolves around India and India only. With this hypocrite attitude how can we win anything. No doubt our credibility is in comparison to Somalia these days. Shame. Khuda Hafiz!
They need help...we must provide it to them
Fact is that resentment of Chinese rule is not only in Xingiang, It is all over western China, Tibet and Inner Mongolia are other examples. Most of the development is happening in Eastern China. So west is not only economically deprived but also is culturally and ethnically very different than rest of Han dominated China. It is sparsely populated and is a major source of natural resources which China desperately needs. At gov level I never imagine Pakistan going against Chinese Policy. One may agree or disagree with various methods of resistance in these western regions of China (passive resistance by Dalai Lama, militant by some Uyghurs and ethnic protests in Inner Mongolia) but fact is that these are territories colonized by China. If they are offered cultural and religious freedom and a guarantee not to over run them and make them a minority in their historic lands as well as equal development as rest of China they would love to be part of a future super power and pay their fair share of taxes and revenues. India has far better policies for Indian controlled Kashmir than what China has for its western provinces. Unity is in respecting diversity.
@Mirza:
No, I wasn't being serious. Thanks for catching on, Sherlock. :)
@Noise: Indeed ur right
But what u failed to realise is that the soviets wouldn't have stopped in afghanland they would have carried on
Our interests converged
With china we should tell them we hold no Ill feeling towards it but if it violates the rights of it's ethnic minorities then we will extend the same support we extend to Kashmir
It's another issue that we fail to protect our own minorities
@Akhtar - Fake name indeed. You Indian trolls need to stop pretending to be Pakistanis. How can Pakistan ever trust the Indians who have so many fake faces and like to create turmoil in other countries to distort Pakistan's name or religon's name. . . . Please learn to be human atleast!! Wicked deeds will take you nowhere . . .
@M More like, the west used us as pawns against the soviet union and the west will use us as pawns again against china am i rite?
@Khan/SH: Have you heard the Term "ummat al-mu'minin"? Have you heard of famous verse from Surah Al-i-Imran? How is it not our duty to protect Uighur Muslims when their rights are being trampled upon? Remember, Pakistan is a Islamic State & therefore, it should & must fight for the rights of oppressed muslims? Whether its Palestinians, Uzbeks, Chechans, kashmiris or Uighurs. Its time Pakistan declare a Jihad against china to protect our Brothers.
@Akthar: Give it a rest. I can tell you are not Pakistani. We respect our Chinese neighbours and we will never interfere in their internal matters. Xinjiang is an internal matter of our Chinese allies and we support whatever they must do to settle the issue and rid the region of criminals the same way we in Pakistan want to rid our state of anti state criminals. Kashmir is another issue since it is a region that was denied access to Pakistan by the British and illegaly occupied by the Indians.
Another attempt to slander Pakistan by its enemies - who happen to be spinning it from all angles. The Indian trolls should be careful about their unhealthy, destructive comments about breaking any country . . . . 'cause India also has muslim states that may wish the same - that India wishes on others!! The world needs well wishers . . . .
m and akhtar is indian
want brothers china pak to fight. but china pak friendship is higher than mountains deeper then sea
@ Akhtar: Seems to me you are a person who is not a Pakistani. As a Pakistani I would love to start a Jihad against TIP. I called Mujaheddin's a terrorist when they were fighting against Russia, I have called Taliban a terrorist group and now we have some more copy cats TIP. I hope some one TIP's them over under six foot of earth. Good Riddance hopefully. Long Live CHINA and I pray for their success against people i.e. TIP who are nothing else but terrorists.
The chineese Muslims are being oppressed we broke the soviet union and cut it to size
We will break china and cut it to size
@Akthar: Now we are going to lose all the people who supported us. Great work guys! Keep doing it so it further isolates Pakistan
@Noman Ansari: You cannot be serious, are you? All we need is PR advisors to the terrorists!
So much bloodshed. The Scriptures tell us to test ourselves and make sure we are in the faith. http://atheistlegitimacy.blogspot.com/
@ Akhtar: Please don't go speaking for "all Pakistanis."
USA needs another muslim country to 'fight' the Chinese as it cannot depend on Pakistan to do it...so it 'plants' "..this living in Turkey and against Chinese occupation cell..." Who you think you are fooling...???
We must support our brothers in their righteous fight. We must morally and diplomatically offer them all the assistance that we have provided Palestine, Kashmir, Kosovo and Chechnya.
These are our brothers, it is a shame to call them terrorists. They are freedom fighters. If our own papers start calling them terrorists then our righteous support to Palestine, Kashmir, Kosovo and Chechnya will also be termed as supporting terrorism.
I condemn calling these freedom fighters as terrorists in the strongest terms.
Pakistan Zindabad.
here we go now all pakistan needs is its mullahs getting involved in chinese internal affairs and there goes pakistans best friend!
"China's growing economic presence in the region and its political stake in the area's independence are also congruent with America's interests." (p.149)
"Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold." (p.124)
Elsewhere in his book, Brzezinski repeats this warning that China must not be allowed to become a global power in league with Russia: "A geostrategic issue of crucial importance is posed by China's emergence as a major power. The most appealing outcome would be to co-opt a democratizing and free-marketing China into a larger Asian regional framework of cooperation. But suppose China does not democratize but continues to grow in economic and military power? A `Greater China' may be emerging whatever the desires and calculations of its neighbors, and any effort to prevent that from happening could entail an intensifying conflict with China. Such a conflict could strain American-Japanese relations--for it is far from certain that Japan would want to follow America's lead in containing China--and could therefore have potentially revolutionary consequences for Tokyo's definition of Japan's regional role, perhaps even resulting in the termination of the American presence in the Far East. . . .
"Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an `anti-hegemonic' coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously."
From: Zbigniew Brzezinski's book
Can terrorists not wear black masks please? Don't they know that as an organization it is counterproductive for them to be seen wearing something frightening? If they want sympathy, I propose they wear something friendlier!
How about clown masks? Or ummm... Che Guerra shirts?
Oil Liberation Force is back. Brzenzski policies are winning.
So, will they be classified as Freedom Fighters too, like the Kashmiri ones, by the Pakistanis establishment and the people?
Or, is the power of money greater than a feeling of Religious sympathy?
Vienna,08-09-2011 Old news known among Hindus as Puranas. Reuters should come up with new events so far not known. Taravadu Taranga Trust for Media Monitoring TTTMM India --Kulamarva Balakrishna
Pakistan will do anything and everything to help China crackdown on terrorists, but thinks that it is looking a Superpower, the US, in the eye by not doing the same to crack down on terrorism in Afghanistan. Actually, not cracking down on terrorism within Pakistan is also some sort of warped idea of pride.
another bunch of nitwits on the rise!