Posted on 12/23/2003 9:10:28 AM PST by knighthawk
A Muslim man recently identified by China as its top "terrorist" has been shot and killed in an anti-terrorism operation in Pakistan by US and Pakistani forces, official media said.
Hasan Mahsum, a former resident of north-western China's Xinjiang region, was killed recently, the Beijing News said, providing no details of the exact time and location of the incident.
China last week placed Hasan Mahsum on the top of its first ever list of 11 ethnic Uighur Muslim separatists from the Xinjiang region who it branded as "terrorists".
It identified Mahsum, 39, as a leader of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) which it said was a "terrorist" group, along with three others.
It claimed the individuals and groups had plotted and carried out violent activities including bombings and assassinations in China to try to set up an independent state of East Turkistan in the Uighur populated Xinjiang region.
Beijing requested foreign assistance in arresting the individuals and shutting down the groups.
Last year, the United States added ETIM to its list of terrorist groups and announced it would freeze the assets of ETIM members, a move seen as a pay-off for Chinese support for the US war against terrorism.
Shortly afterwards, China received a major boost when the United Nations added ETIM to its list of terrorist organisations.
The Beijing News said on Tuesday Mahsum had been operating at the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When he was living in Xinjiang, he planned a bombing in 1995 and fled from China to Afghanistan in 1997.
He joined Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organisation and established the ETIM with the support of Al Qaeda, the report said.
The Chinese Government claimed in its list that ETIM had received several million dollars in funding from Osama bin Laden to spread religious extremism and carry out terrorist activities.
China said the ETIM had also established bases outside China, including in Afghanistan, to train terrorists and plot and guide sabotage activities in China.
Mahsum later sent people into China to carry out numerous "terrorist activities," it said.
The state-run newspaper said that in 1998 Hasan Mahsum sent several dozen people to China and set up more than 10 bases in Xinjiang and elsewhere across the country to train them to carry out violent activities.
"They trained 150 terrorists in total. They also set up many small training places where many weapons were hidden there," it said.
Local police confiscated a large quantity of guns, grenades and bullets from the training bases in China.
Critics, including Amnesty International and other human rights groups, have blasted China for publicizing the list of alleged terrorists.
They said Beijing was trying to use the global anti-terrorism campaign to garner international support for a harsher crackdown against Uighur separatists.
Foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said on Tuesday he could not provide more information on Mahsum's death.
"I just found out about this," Liu told a regular briefing.
China's top terrorist is a Muslim.
Hmmmm . . . .
This past October, the new President of China, Hu Jintao, met w/ George W. Bush at the 11th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Bangkok. The new Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, visited The White House on Dec 9th,and they appeared quite chummy together,and Wen's big grin upon meeting Dick Cheney on the South Lawn is a priceless picture! It's nice to see The USA and China working together to kill more Terrorists. This is most certainly another great action from our ( and Pakistans)Military Forces.
China's top terrorist is was a Muslim.
There.
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