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
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats