An exiled group struggling for an independent homeland in China's far northwest yesterday questioned the motives for a police raid on an alleged Islamist terrorist camp there that left 19 people dead.
China's state-run press announced on Monday that police last week destroyed an Islamic terrorist training camp in the remote Xinjiang region, which is heavily populated by the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority.
Eighteen suspected terrorists and one policeman were killed in a gun battle during the raid, Xinhua news agency said, as it warned of links between the renegade group and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
PHOTO: AP
The alleged training camp belonging to the so-called East Turkestan Islamic Movement was located in the Pamir mountain region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, Xinhua cited Xinjiang police spokesman Ba Yan as saying.
Xinhua said the group may have infiltrated the region with al-Qaeda's help, as it reported that 22 hand grenades were seized and evidence uncovered of the group attempting to produce up to 1,500 more such devices.
An exiled Uighur organization that has been seeking independence in Xinjiang yesterday doubted the veracity of the report.
It also accused Beijing of using the global war on terror to renege on promises of autonomy for the restive region.
"We do not know what happened in this village, except for the Chinese government version," said Alim Seytoff, the Washington-based executive chairman of the World Uighur Congress. "The Chinese government has failed to provide substantial evidence to the international community to prove it is facing an international terrorist threat."
"For all we know, this may have been something artificially created by the Chinese government to prove the terrorist threat," he said.
But Zhao Yongchen (趙永琛), China's vice head of the Xinjiang anti-terrorist force, said the threat of terrorism was real and maintained that up to 160 people had been killed in Xinjiang by terrorists over the past "several dozen years."
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS