Al-Qaeda is threatening for the first time to attack Chinese interests overseas in retaliation for the deaths of Muslims in the restive region of Xinjiang, a risk analysis group said.
The call for reprisals against China comes from the Algerian-based offshoot al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a summary of a report by the international consultancy Stirling Assynt said.
“Although AQIM appear to be the first arm of al-Qaeda to officially state they will target Chinese interests, others are likely to follow,” said the report, which was first divulged by the South China Morning Post yesterday.
Osama bin Laden’s network has not previously threatened China, but the Stirling report said a thirst for vengeance over Beijing’s clampdown in Xinjiang was spreading over the global jihadist community.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese work in the Middle East and North Africa, including 50,000 in Algeria, estimated the group, which has offices in London and Hong Kong providing risk advice to corporate and official clients.
“This threat should be taken seriously,” Stirling said, basing its information on people who it said had seen the AQIM instruction.
“There is an increasing amount of chatter ... among jihadists who claim they want to see action against China,” he said.
“Some of these individuals have been actively seeking information on China’s interests in the Muslim world, which they could use for targeting purposes,” Stirling said.
Stirling said the extremist group could well target Chinese projects in Yemen in a bid to topple the Beijing-friendly government of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The intelligence firm also cited al-Qaeda’s killing of 24 Algerian security officers who were meant to be protection for Chinese engineers three weeks ago.
“On that occasion they did not attack the Chinese engineers because the target was the project on which they were working,” he said.
“Now, future attacks of this kind are likely to target security forces and Chinese engineers alike,” the report said.
The most likely scenario would be that al-Qaeda’s central leadership would encourage their affiliates in North Africa and the Arabian peninsula to attack Chinese targets near at hand, it said.
Al-Qaeda centrally does “not want to open a new front with China,” the analysis said.
“But equally their sense of Muslim solidarity compels them to help and/or to be seen to be helping. This is also a factor in helping the organization regain support and funding from their global constituency,” it said.
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