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."
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS