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China arrests East Turkestan ‘terror’ suspects

Chinese authorities have detained 45 East Turkestan “terrorist” suspects and foiled plots to carry out suicide bomb attacks and kidnap athletes to disrupt the Beijing Olympics, a police spokesman said yesterday.

Beijing claims Uighur militants have been agitating to establish an independent East Turkestan in China’s predominantly Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Chinese authorities cracked two “terrorist” groups, one of which belonged to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping (吳和平) said in Beijing.

ETIM was listed by the UN as a terrorist group in 2002 and has links to al-Qaeda.

The group asked its members to do trial runs using poisoned meat, poison gas and remote control explosive devices, Wu said.

Their aim was “to create an international incident with the goal of disrupting the Olympic Games,” the spokesman said.

The first group, led by Aji Muhammat, bought explosive materials and carried out 13 test explosions, Wu said without giving the nationality of the ringleader.

Suspects in custody confessed they were ordered to commit suicide when arrested, he said.

Police detained 10 suspects and seized 16,000 yuan (US$2,300) in cash and a large quantity of “Holy War” training materials, Wu said.

At the end of last year, the group ordered its members to enter China and had planned to be ready by April to carry out “terrorist” activities starting from May in Beijing and Shanghai, using explosives and poison, the spokesman said.

In the second case, authorities detained 35 people, seized 9.51kg of explosives, eight detonators and some “Holy War” propaganda material, Wu said, adding that the group had planned to kidnap foreign journalists, tourists and athletes.

European lawmakers yesterday urged EU leaders to boycott the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing this summer unless China resumes talks with Tibetan exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

The deputies called on the 27 leaders “to strive to find a common EU position with regard to attendance ... at the Olympic Games opening ceremony, with the option of non-attendance in the event that there is no resumption of dialogue.”

The assembly’s non-binding resolution — adopted in Brussels by 580 votes to 24, with 45 abstentions — came as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he would not attend the opening ceremony amid a growing number of rallies in the West since Beijing’s crackdown on protests in Tibet began on March 10.

In the resolution, the European assembly “firmly condemns the brutal repression by the Chinese security forces against Tibetan demonstrators and all acts of violence from whichever source.”

Meanwhile, experts at ScanSafe, an Internet security firm, said yesterday that several Web sites running pro-Tibet campaigns have been targeted by Internet criminals,.

They that said two popular Web sites, SaveTibet.org and FreeTibet.org, had been specifically targeted by hackers.

It is unclear who is behind the attacks, but the cyberstrikes are believed to emanate from servers in Taiwan and used a well-known vulnerability in some Web sites to link to invisible pages. They then attempt to force computers with inadequate protection to download spying programs, which can be used to take control of their machines.

A FreeTibet.org spokeswoman said the site had fixed the problem after being notified of it and that no users’ computers are thought to have been infected.



Also see: China snubs IOC call on rights record
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