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."
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS