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China said Saturday it was confident it could ensure the nation's safety after an Al-Qaeda leader called on members of the mainly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang to launch a jihad against Beijing. "The Chinese government has the confidence and the ability to protect the safety of the nation, of people's lives and property," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement faxed to AFP. Ma was reacting to a call made this week by Abu Yahia al-Libi, one of Al-Qaeda's top leaders, in a video recording posted on an Islamist website, according to the SITE Intelligence group. "Let...

Rome, 7 October (AKI) - A leading Al-Qaeda militant on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to defend Uighurs in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang. He told Uighurs to prepare for a holy war or Jihad and urged a "vast media campaign" to raise awareness of their fate at the hands of "oppressive" China.

Rome, 7 October (AKI) - A leading Al-Qaeda militant on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to defend Uighurs in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang. He told Uighurs to prepare for a holy war or Jihad and urged a "vast media campaign" to raise awareness of their fate at the hands of "oppressive" China. In the video posted to jihadist websites, Abu Yahya al-Libi appeared to launch a frontal assault against China. "This massacre is not being carried out by criminal Crusaders or evil Jews who have committed crimes against our nation," al-Libi stated. "Today, a new massacre is being...

Pipeline at Risk By Michael Lelyveld 2009-09-14 China’s Central Asia gas pipeline project is increasingly at risk amid ethnic unrest in Xinjiang. BOSTON—Renewed unrest in Xinjiang has come at a critical time for China’s energy development as the country prepares to open its first gas import pipeline through the western region by the end of the year, experts say. Central Asian countries report they are on schedule for the mid-December startup of the 2,000-km (1,240-mile) pipeline from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, forming part of an ambitious 7,000-km project to supply China’s eastern cities. On Aug. 14, China National Petroleum...

Panic over syringe stabbings spreads to Beijing Jane Macartney, China Correspondent The Chinese authorities are anxious that mysterious syringe stabbings that have caused panic in the restive far west have now reached the capital. The threat of such needle attacks comes as an enormous security blanket has been thrown across Beijing to ensure that a huge military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule passes off without a hitch on October 1. Indications that the bizarre attacks may have extended from the mostly Muslim, riot-torn region of Xinjiang to Beijing came in the form of directives from...

KOLKATA: After trying to fob off Indian officials and investigators all of Sunday night, one of the pilots of the United Arab Emirates air force aircraft detained at Kolkata airport since Sunday finally admitted to the plane carrying a consignment of weapons. The C-130 Hercules among the biggest transport aircraft in the world was on its way to Xiangyang, China, from UAEAF's Western Air Command base in Abu Dhabi. Although the UAE government had the necessary clearances from Indian authorities for the flight to land in Kolkata, it had not informed that the aircraft would be carrying weapons. Indian Customs...

New unrest in China's Xinjiang after syringe attacks By Ben Blanchard and Lucy Hornby Thu Sep 3, 5:29 am ET BEIJING (Reuters) – A new round of unrest broke out in China's far western region of Xinjiang on Thursday, as protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against a series of reported syringe attacks in the regional capital, witnesses said. The protests happened at a highly sensitive time for China, as it gears up to celebrate in less than a month the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party coming to power, which has been accompanied by a nationwide security clampdown....

Note: The following SNIPPET is a quote: Al-Qaeda's "Islamic State of Iraq" Calls on Muslims to Join Uighur Jihad against China On August 22, 2009, the media division of Al-Qaeda's "Islamic State of Iraq" organization (ISI) released the sixth video in its "Knights of Martyrdom" series, which celebrates jihadists killed in the war in Iraq. This time, the video was dedicated to the Muslims of East Turkestan, i.e. the Uighurs of China's Xinjiang Province. The clashes that took place in Urumchi in July between Uighurs and the Chinese authorities and other Han Chinese elicited a large wave of popular support...

CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- A plane was hijacked in China's restive region of Xinjiang on Sunday, according to state media. The agency sent out a brief "flash" alert saying a plane had been hijacked, without giving further details

Xinjiang police published the photoes of 15 suspects wanted globally. 1 of the 15 wanted suspects is Han and the others are Uyghur. BTW, after having arrested 253 suspects invloved in the bloody riots in Urumqi on July 5th, Xinjiang police announced that they had arrested 319 more suspects again. Xinjiang police pledge that " all thugs would be arrested and none of them has chance to escape"

Without a doubt the biggest story in the jihadi web this past week is China, in response to the perceived oppression of the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang, AKA East Turkistan. Examples of postings include • a history of Muslims in China • an article on "The Strategic Importance of Xinjiang for Eurasian Energy Infrastructure" (complete with a translation into Arabic of the source English-language article, and a map of pipelines in Central Asia) • a chapter from a book by Mohammed Qutb about Communism • and last, but certainly not least, a statement from Commander Sayfullah of the Uighur 'Turkistan...

Civilian Airports Commandeered, More Than 10,000 Paramilitary Police Diverted to Xinjiang to Maintain Security By chinafreepress.org (translation) Jul 10, 2009 - 4:26:58 AM (Image) Civilian Airports Commandeered, More Than 10,000 Paramilitary Police Diverted to Xinjiang to Maintain Security Boxun reports that regional airports and airliners have been commandeered in transporting 14,000 paramilitary police officers and troops from Jiangsu, Henan and Fujian provinces to Xinjiang following last week's violent uprising. A correspondent in Shanghai's Hongqiao Airport confirmed that flights were cancelled while the military deployment took place.

"The SCO, a regional organization founded by China and five other countries that lie close to the Xinjiang region -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- said in a statement that it believes the measures the Chinese government is taking can restore peace and order there. ... The statement demonstrated that the SCO member states understood well that the situation in Xinjiang bears closely on that of the entire surrounding region, and stability in Central and South Asia would in turn promote the enduring peace and common prosperity of all countries there. ... Historially, Xinjiang was known for its...

SNIPPET: "BEIJING - THREE Uighur men tried to incite other Muslims to launch a 'jihad' and attacked a mosque security guard before police shot and killed two of them, state media reported on Tuesday. The incident began when around 150 Muslims were praying in a mosque in Urumqi, the capital of the northwest Xinjiang region on Monday, Xinhua news agency said, citing an unnamed imam who was giving a service at the time. One man stood up and tried to take over the prayers but was stopped, the imam told Xinhua. A few minutes later the man reportedly stood up...

China has demanded that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan retract his accusation that Beijing practised genocide against ethnic Uighurs. Mr Erdogan made the comments after riots in the Muslim Uighur heartland of Xinjiang in which 184 people died. Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, is under heavy police and military control. UK-based analysts say al-Qaeda-linked militants in Algeria have called for reprisals against Chinese workers in the wake of the violence. China's rejection of Mr Erdogan's remarks came in an editorial headlined "Don't twist facts" in the English-language newspaper China Daily. It said the fact that 137 of the 184 victims of...

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You see the Chinese flag has five stars. Each of the five stars represents an ethnic group that is supposed to compose the Chinese nation. These five stars represent the Han Chinese, the Turks of Xinjiang, Tibetans, Manchurians, and Mongolians. The ideology is so that just like you have Chinese-Americans in the United States, you have a Chinese nation of multiple ethnic groups, including Koreans. But, they don't get a star (But, of course, the crucial difference would be that Chinese-Americans willingly migrated to the United States whereas those five groups outside of Manchurians, who for all practical purposes no...

An oil tank exploded at a chemical plant in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's restive Xinjiang region, on Sunday morning, the official Xinhua News Agency reported quoting firefighters. No casualties have been reported so far and the cause is being investigated, the report said. The explosion occurred around 10 a.m. at a refinery of China National Petroleum Corp. in northern Urumqi, Xinhua quoted city firefighters as saying.

As the situation in Xinjiang calms down, people from across China discuss the cause of the unrest and the impact it might have on social stability in the future. Harry He, tradesman, Xian Uighurs believe this is their land, and it is. But Han Chinese have been settling down there since the Tang dynasty, when the Silk Route opened up new cities and new opportunities. Maybe the Chinese did rule Xinjiang with an iron first. But we are learning the lesson. Things have already got better for ethnic minorities. In some ways, they enjoy more privileges. For example I have...

What was once a grocery shop is now a blackened mess. Two boys in shorts and singlets play in the rubble but the usual occupants are absent. Five days ago a Han Chinese family was butchered in this small shop — victims of the Uighurs who rampaged through Urumqi. Yu Dongzhi described how he clawed through the smoking ruins of the store to search for the family who lived there. He hoped to find his sister, Yu Xinli; her husband, Zhang Mingying; their 13-year-old son; her elderly mother-in-law; and a nephew aged 27. The police helped him to dig among...

On Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan announced his country will ask the UN Security Council to discuss the ethnic rioting that has scarred China’s Xinjiang region this week. Then he upped the rhetoric. “The incidents in China are, simply put, a genocide,” Erdogan said on Friday. “There’s no point in interpreting this otherwise.” On July 5, a peaceful demonstration by the local Uighurs,Turkic Muslims,apparently triggered a savage reaction by Chinese police, and that led to bloody clashes between enraged Uighurs and Hans, members of the majority ethnic group in China. The disturbances started in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang,and...

Thousands of angry ethnic Han Chinese wielding clubs and machetes roamed this capital city of Xinjiang territory and engaged in sporadic revenge attacks against Uighurs after deadly riots Sunday. The fresh unrest prompted Chinese President Hu Jintao to fly home early Wednesday from Italy, where he had been scheduled to attend the meeting of the Group of Eight leading nations. His sudden departure from such a high-profile international event underlined the severity of the challenge the Xinjiang violence presents to China's leadership. In Urumqi, authorities imposed a curfew and security forces tried to keep the two ethnic groups apart in...

Most of us have read about Muslims rioting in numerous European countries. When the riots were over, Muslims who were in them were basically free to go about their business. Not in China. China arrests 1,434 after deadly Xinjiang riots By WILLIAM FOREMAN URUMQI, China – Police have arrested 1,434 suspects in connection with the worst ethnic violence in decades in China's western Xinjiang region, which killed at least 156 people, state media reported Tuesday.

State-run Chinese media say police have arrested 1,434 suspects in the deadly ethnic riots in the western Xinjiang region. Officials released no other details. The White House says it is deeply concerned over the deadly violence in and has called for restraint. Chinese officials say at least 156 people were killed and more than 800 hurt in riots between ethic Uighurs and police in Xinjiang. Monday's fighting grew out of what witnesses say was a peaceful anti-government protest by Uighurs Sunday. No one is sure what led the march to explode into violence. But Chinese officials accuse exiled Uighur groups...

                                                                                                                                 

140 slain as Chinese riot police, Muslims clash in northwestern city Eight hundred people are injured and hundreds are reported arrested in Urumqi. The Uighur demonstrators were protesting against racial discrimination. By Barbara Demick July 6, 2009 Firefighters are seen dousing a bus in Urumqi, the main city in Xinjiang, where China's ethnic Uighur minority is concentrated. Eight hundred people were injured and hundreds held as demonstrations against racial discrimination erupted into street violence. (Shen Qiao / New China News Agency / July 5, 2009) Reporting from Beijing - China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the...

Here is the latest update on the "Muslims Rioting in China" article. China state media says 129 killed in riots in west BEIJING – Chinese state media says that 129 people have been killed and more than 800 hurt in violence in the country's western Xinjiang region.

More than 100 people have been killed and 800 injured in a riot which broke out in the ethnically sensitive far-Western Chinese province of Xinjiang. The death-toll, which stands at 129, marks a major escalation in the casualty figures from the disturbance which broke out on Sunday night after police tried to disperse a demonstration by members of the Uighur Muslim minority in the provincial capital, Urumqi. Initial reports said that just three people had been killed in running battles with police that left burned-out cars and buses and several smashed shop-fronts. Xinhua, the state-operated news service, did not provide...

Rioters in China's far west Xinjiang region burned vehicles and blocked traffic in the regional capital Urumqi, and police rushed to the scene to impose order, the state news agency reported on Sunday. Restive Xinjiang is divided between the largely Muslim Uighur people and Han Chinese...

China uncovered seven "terror cells" in the western frontier city of Kashgar in the first four months of 2009, the China Daily said on Wednesday, citing the city's party secretary. The historic oasis city in the arid region of Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighurs, an ethnic group that often chafes under Chinese rule and resents an influx of Han Chinese workers from central China. The area borders Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as central Asian states.

April 20, 2009 TG-92 "Treasury Targets Leader of Group Tied to Al Qaida" SNIPPET: "Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today targeted al Qaida's support network by designating Abdul Haq, the overall leader and commander of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP), a terrorist organization designated under E.O. 13224 for its support to al Qaida. E.O. 13224 targets terrorists and those providing financial, technological, or material support to terrorists or acts of terrorism by freezing the assets of designated persons and prohibiting transactions with them. This Treasury action follows a decision by the United Nations Security Council's...

30,000 Han Chinese migrants pour into East Turkistan per day 2009-02-23 “while China forcibly transferring Uyghur women to inland China for slavery labor with the excuse of providing them job opportunity, while China implementing strict birth control policy on Uyghurs with the excuse of population control, thousands of Han Chinese migrants pour into East Turkistan per day and Chinese government are actively adjusting transport capacity to better serve these Chinese migrants.” Said Uyghur Uyghur Women who recently escaped from East Turkistan. ETIC learned that Chinese government strongly helping these migrants and providing them employment opportunity as well to attract more...

Uighurs threatened with family liability by security forces – children too are being arrested Göttingen, 27. August 2008 A new wave of arrests is rolling against the Moslem Uighurs in the north-west of China according to information received by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV). Family liability is the order of the day and even children are being arrested. "About 150 children have been held for days in the Ba Jia Hu prison in the capital of the Autonomous region of Xinjiang because they took part in instruction on Islam”, reported the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius, on Wednesday in...

Suspected terrorist attack kills two in China's Xinjiang province Two policemen have been killed and several wounded in the latest attack in China's Xinjiang province, reports say. By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai Last Updated: 8:26PM BST 28 Aug 2008 The fourth attack in less than two months came in a village in Jiashi County, where reports said "fierce gunfire" had been exchanged. However, details of the attack remain unclear, and no Chinese state media has reported it. An official at the Public Security Bureau said eight Uighurs, local ethnic Muslims, were involved and that one man had been captured.

Two Faces of China by: Irene Warren, August 25, 2008 As China hosted the 2008 Olympian competitors for this year’s games, in far Western Xinjiang a series of attacks have claimed the lives of 19 police officers and 15 civilians, and left a number of others with serious injuries, according to experts who spoke at the Heritage Foundation on August 21. Since the Olympic Games opened the Turkistan Islamic Party has taken responsibility for killing three civilians in two separate bus bombing incidents, and also fatally-wounding the 19 policemen and 15 civilians inside the Yunnan province. The Chinese Government still...

For Gansu’s Uighurs, Beijing’s Olympics are a world away By Anna Bodner DPA, LANZHOU, CHINA Friday, Aug 22, 2008, Page 9 Olympic fever that has swept most of China seems to have limited influence in Lanzhou, considered the geometrical center of China. For many, the 3 million inhabitant city capital of Gansu Province is still a frontier town, and while the Games’ influence is hard to miss in the city center with flags on mass display in shops and cars, hardly a trace of the Olympics can be found in the city’s Muslim quarters, where minarets tower over the roofs....

Three security staff murdered in China's Xinjiang: Xinhua 1 hour, 5 minutes ago Three security staff were stabbed to death in an attack Tuesday in northwest China's Xinjiang region, state media reported, the third deadly assault reported there in just over a week. Assailants jumped off a vehicle passing through a checkpoint about 9 am (0100 GMT), attacking the security officers, the Xinhua news agency reported. It added one other security officer was injured.

/begin my translation Xinjiang Terrorists are Predominantly Women in 20's Terrorists who were behind a series of Aug. 10 bombings in Kuqa county of Xinjiang, China, are predominantly women in 20's. Quoting sources, Ta Kung Pao(大公報) in Hong Kong reported that four suspects, three women and a man, were pursued by police and hit the dead end, at which they killed themselves by setting off bombs they carried. Around 2:30 am, Aug.10, Uyghur terrorists armed with guns, and home-made bombs made a series of attacks on police station, government offices, and markets, moving as a group. A doctor at a...

Suicide pipe bombers made a dozen attacks on police stations, government offices and businesses yesterday as Muslim separatists in the far northwest of China stepped up their Olympics bombing campaign. At least 11 people died in the raids, which took place before dawn in Kuqa, an oasis city on the northern edge of the Taklimakan desert in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang. Ten of the dead were reported to be attackers, three of whom appear to have blown themselves up to avoid capture. It was an unprecedented event in China, which has no history of suicide bombing, and a...

BEIJING, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A series of blasts killed at least two people in China's restive far northwest Xinjiang on Sunday, underscoring volatile tensions there two days into the Olympics and less than a week after a blast killed 16 police. The blasts in central Kuqa, a major town in southern Xinjiang more than 3,000 km (1,860 miles) from Beijing, occurred before dawn, Xinhua news agency quoted witnesses as saying. "Casualties of the incident may still rise, Xinhua reported, citing witnesses who "saw flashes of fire and heard sporadic gunshots after the explosions". Four or five suspects were killed...

<p>An Islamic group that has threatened to attack the Olympics released a new video warning Muslims to avoid planes, trains and buses used by Chinese, a US group that monitors militant organisations said.</p> <p>The six-minute video, issued two days before Friday's opening of the Beijing games, was purportedly made by the Turkistan Islamic Party, which seeks independence for China's western Xinjiang region, the SITE Intelligence Group said on Thursday.</p>

Xinjiang official calls Monday's raid on border police a terrorist attack www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-05 19:01:17 KASHI, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- An official of Kashi Prefecture in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said on Tuesday the raid on Kashi border police a day earlier was a terrorist attack. The attack had been planned in advance, Shi Dagang, Communist Party secretary of Kashi, told a press conference held in Kashi on Tuesday afternoon. He said the two suspects caught at the scene had confessed. Shi said that in documents prepared beforehand, the two had written that the attack was more important than...

CHINA XINJIANG OFFICIAL SAYS 18 "FOREIGN AGITATORS" ARRESTED AFTER KASHGAR BOMBINGS

Has China got a terrorist problem? The Uighur attack in the northwest was shocking but not a precursor to a bigger outrage Rosemary Righter The Olympics will open on Friday inside a triple ring of steel. Anti-terrorism precautions have been an unavoidable feature of the Games since the PLO massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972, but China has taken things to extremes. It has mobilised 110,000 police and other security forces in Beijing itself, plus 1.4 million security “volunteers” with Red Guard-style armbands and no fewer than 300,000 spy cameras. The security bill for Beijing alone exceeds £3...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A police station in China's restive Xinjiang region was attacked on Monday morning, four days before the Beijing Olympics begin, killing 16 officers and wounding 12, state media reported. "Rioters drove two vehicles to break into the border patrol armed police division" near Kashgar and threw two grenades, Xinhua reported. The brief report did not describe the attackers. But the Xinjiang region in the far northwest has been at the heart of China's security fears leading up the Olympics, which begin in four days. Xinjiang is home to a large Uighur Muslim population, many of them discontent...

via translation- ALERT - China: 16 customs officers killed and 16 wounded in an attack in Xinjiang BEIJING - Sixteen customs officers were killed and sixteen others injured Monday morning when the attack on their post in Xinjiang, Muslim region of northwestern China, according to the China New Agency.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US lawmakers on Friday "strongly condemned" what they called Beijing's harsh pre-Olympic crackdown in China's Muslim-populated far northwest Xinjiang region. The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited "credible" reports about a July 9 conviction in a closed trial of 15 minority Muslim Uighurs on terrorism charges that led to "the immediate execution of two" of them. Three others were given suspended death sentences and the remaining 10 received life imprisonment, it said. These are "abuses of due process and rule of law," said caucus co-chairmen Democrat Jim McGovern and Republican Frank...

PLA's rapid reaction capability in Tibet By Andrei Chang Published: June 27, 2008 Hong Kong, China — The eruption of riots in Tibet in March reflected an increasingly complicated political situation there, involving both internal and external factors. Internally, the peaceful and nonviolent approach of the Dalai Lama toward China has encountered greater resistance from the young generation of Tibetans, and the Dalai Lama’s political relevance has been gradually marginalized as a result. Externally, India’s China policy is now at a critical point, and India-China relations are likely to slip backward if they fail to quickly progress. India is adjusting...

THE TORCH IN THE WILD WEST Faking the Olympic Spirit in China's Muslim Region By Andreas Lorenz The Olympic torch is in China's far West and security is tight. Still, there are some who came out to celebrate the event -- 200 invited guests and a handful of well-trained Uighar schoolchildren. Journalists were watched closely. A gigantic statue of Mao waves to the people who have gathered in his shadow on Wednesday morning to celebrate the Olympic flame. But despite the size of the stone figure, there aren't many milling about on Kashgar's main square: Perhaps 200 invited guests --...