China arrests 5 over deadly Tiananmen Square attack

[News_Editor]

BEIJING, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- Five people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in this week's suicide car attack on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, killing two people and injuring 40 others, Chinese officials confirmed on Wednesday, describing the incident as a "terrorist attack" for the first time.

The attack happened at around 12:05 p.m. local time on Monday when a jeep drove into crowds of tourists and police officers in front of the Tiananmen Rostrum, a structure that stands at the entrance to the Forbidden City and bears a giant portrait of communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

The vehicle, carrying a driver and two passengers, then crashed into a guardrail of the Jinshui Bridge before bursting into flames. Footage from the scene showed the vehicle engulfed in flames with thick black smoke rising from the scene as the giant portrait of Mao was visible in the background. Five people were killed, including those inside the car, while 40 others were injured.

"Police have determined the incident of 10/28 was a rigorously planned, organized and premeditated case of a violent terrorist attack," the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said in a statement on Wednesday. It identified the driver as Usmen Hasan and his passengers as his mother Kuwanhan Reyim and wife Gulkiz Gini.

Inside the jeep, which had a license plate from the restive region of Xinjiang, investigators found petrol - which was used to set the vehicle on fire - two machetes, iron bars, religious text, and a religious flag. The five people arrested by police were also found to be in the possession of long knives, a "jihad" flag and other items.

The bureau said the suspects - all of whom have names identifying them as members of the Muslim Uighurs ethnic group - had confessed to knowing Usmen Hasan. Other details about the suspects, such as their intentions or when and where they were captured, were not immediately released.

Hours after Monday's attack, as authorities remained tight-lipped to discuss the sensitive incident, police had issued a notice to hotels in the capital, asking them to be on the look-out for suspicious guests and vehicles. It urged them to notify law enforcement if they had any information, adding that it was necessary to prevent them from "committing further crimes."

An estimated eight million Uighurs are living in the Central Asian region of Xinjiang, which is officially known as China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. A large number of Uighur are reportedly unhappy about the large migrant Han Chinese settlers, accusing them of making their interests less important and generally disregarding their culture.

Xinjiang was the scene of violent clashes between Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese in July 2009, leaving 197 people killed and more than 1,700 others injured. The riots were the region's worst ethnic clashes in decades and the violence only stopped when a large number of troops were deployed to the remote western region.

Following the riots, China cut all communications from the region to the rest of the world, including international phone calls, text messaging, and the Internet. Thousands of additional security forces have since been deployed and thousands of 'riot-proof' closed-circuit television cameras have been set up in public places in an attempt to discourage any violence or unrest.

The area where Monday's incident happened is internationally best known for the massive pro-democracy protests that took place in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square. The protests turned deadly on June 4 of that year when troops and tanks cleared the square with live fire, resulting in the deaths of at least 241 people. Other sources have put that figure at close to or more than 1,000.

(Copyright 2013 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: [email protected].)

[Publicus]

While the CCP blames the Uyghurs of its westernmost possession, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, for a new development, a terrorist attack in Tianamen Square in Beijing the past week, US based Uyghur exiles say it's an excuse to further arrest and imprison Xinjiang Muslim Uyghurs.

The truth in this particular instance probably lies somewhere in between, although the CCP has never distinguished itself by truth telling. So perhaps it's possible instead to find the reality of the situation.

The CCP militarily occupied the Second East Turkistan Republic in 1950, one year after it militarily occupied Tibet.

Unlike Tibet, however, the predominant Uyghur Bai ethnicity is primarily white skinned with what the Russians call "lightish hair." The Russians had occupied the Turkic speaking region during previous times. While I was in the southernmost CCP-PRC I met some Uyghurs who looked as white to me as (darker haired) Scandinavians.

During the past week, three people the CCP says it has identified as Muslim Uyghurs in a jeep style vehicle conducted a suicide attack in Tianamen Square, a few kilometers from Zongnanhai which is Beijing's Kremlin, and at the entrance to the Forbidden City where a giant portrait of Chairman Mao is displayed.

The Uyghurs have fiercely resisted CCP rule, which has reduced a pre-occupation roughly 82% Uyghur ethnic majority population to a present population figure of 43% Uyghur versus the present 41% Han population.

Recent incidents include the 2007 Xinjiang raid by the People's Armed Police; a thwarted 2008 suicide bombing attempt on a China Southern Airlines Flight; the 2008 Xin Jiang attack which resulted in the deaths of sixteen police officers four days before the Beijing Olympics. Most recently, Uyghurs have fought the People's Armed Police in the July 2009 riots in the capital Urumqi and in the subsequent September 2009 resistance fighting in the countryside which led to the 2010 Aksu City bombing during the trials of 376 Uyghurs accused of fomenting insurrection.

Uyghur Muslims have the reputation of being so-called "moderate" Muslims, at least among the Muslim populations of Asia to include the Middle East (Asia Minor). There are recent independent reports however of jihadist Muslims entering Xin Jiang (New Frontier) and connecting with the small and marginalized few that are the long standing Uyghur East Turkistan Islamic Movement of radical militant Muslims, which is designated by the US and the UN as a terrorist group.

US Uyghur exile groups deny the Muslims of the occupied region are being militantly radicalized by the CCP's powerfully repressive armed internal security apparatus, which gets more money than does the CCP's military forces. Exiled Uyghurs say Beijing makes the accusation so it can justify to itself and to the world cracking down on the general population of the region. Violently repressed Uyghurs however walk every day in the presence of the PAP and among internal security agents that are on the lookout against the possibilities of popular unrest.

It looks like both realities are true.

[Publicus]

China’s Coming Terrorism Wave

On October 27, a carload of Xinjiang residents made headlines by crashing into a Tiananmen Square crowd, killing two people while injuring 38. Then, on Wednesday, a series of explosions rocked the provincial Communist Party headquarters in Shanxi province, killing one person while injuring 8.

This recent uptick in political violence is not an anomaly for China, but a harbinger of terrorist violence to come.

Several long-term trends put China at risk.

http://thediplomat.com/china-power/chinas-coming-terrorism-wave/

What is now the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the CCP-PRC was conquered by PLA military force in 1949 (although the CCP claims a peaceful reclamation of the region that once belonged to ancient China).

So payback is a bitch, as it's often said.

The Uyghurs, being Muslim and Turkic speaking, connect with Turkey in many ways, to include education. A number of young Uyghur men go to Turkey for their education, or graduate education, and some become involved with radical Islamic groups or organizations. Some get experience fighting with the rebels in Syria.

Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan recently visited the CCP-PRC and made a stop off in Urumqui, the capital of Jinjiang. trying to persuade the Uyghurs the CCP is good for them. Erdogan denies Uhghurs in Turkey are being trained by Islamic extremist groups.

Additionally, the CCP won't say it publically, but it is confident India and the CIA too are sponsoring the East Turkistan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang which is designated by both Washington and the UN as a terrorist organization. What's now Xinjiang used to be the East Turkistan Islamic Republic (the first and then the second) which had had some association with the former Soviet Union.

A Recent History of Unrest in Xinjiang

http://www.farwestchina.com/2009/08/recent-history-of-unrest-in-xinjiang.html

Edited November 10, 2013 by Publicus

[Publicus]

Nine gunned down in Xinjiang police station assault

In yet another incident of ethnic violence, nine axe-wielding assailants and two police officers were killed during an attack in the south of the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region on Saturday, reports Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao.

The assailants, armed with axes and knives, assaulted a police station in the Serikbuya township of Xinjiang's Bachu county at around 5:30pm, killing two officers and injuring two others before being gunned down, according to a short Chinese-language report from China's official Xinhua news agency

Xinjiang has been the site of numerous violence clashes, with the most recent incidents leaving dozens dead in April, June and August this year. Uyghur supporters in Xinjiang allege that "terrorism" and "separatism" are merely excuses from Beijing to justify the religious and security restrictions against them.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20131118000011&cid=1101

It's increasingly beginning to appear that the claims by the CCP in Beijing that terrorism is afoot in its occupied colony Xinjiang in the westernmost PRC are false.

It instead appears that the CCP is facing expanded and intensified resistance by the occupied Uyghur population of the region, and that the CCP wants to blame Muslim terrorism on the Muslim population there to justify a widespread and cruel crackdown on the general population as a whole.

There have been a few bombings of CCP offices in a province and a suicide attack in Tianamen Square in Beijing, but there is a consistent recent history of popular resistance against the CCP by the Uyghur people throughout the occupied region. This attack is by a dozen or so individuals with axes and knives, which are hardly known to be weapons and tactics utilized by Muslim terrorists.

As Beijing continues to crush the local culture, society, customs, values, mores, the Uyghur people become more upset and driven to active resistance. The Uyghur frustration and anger toward the CCP's increasingly oppressive and repressive, harsh rule is forcing the CCP in Beijing to recognize that it too must become more forceful but only because it wants to retain effective control over the colonized people and to ensure its access to the natural resources of the region.

More of us are increasingly seeing through the CCP's bogus claims of terrorism as its guise, pretense, pretext, to go in to Xinjiang to brutally oppress the Uyghurs in an even worse manner than the CCP has ever used against resistance by Tibetans in their CCP occupied and colonized homeland of Tibet.

The CCP is shameless and without conscience, whether it's in Tibet, the Philippines, Xinjiang or where ever.

[folium]

While the CCP blames the Uyghurs of its westernmost possession, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, for a new development, a terrorist attack in Tianamen Square in Beijing the past week, US based Uyghur exiles say it's an excuse to further arrest and imprison Xinjiang Muslim Uyghurs.

The truth in this particular instance probably lies somewhere in between, although the CCP has never distinguished itself by truth telling. So perhaps it's possible instead to find the reality of the situation.

The CCP militarily occupied the Second East Turkistan Republic in 1950, one year after it militarily occupied Tibet.

Unlike Tibet, however, the predominant Uyghur Bai ethnicity is primarily white skinned with what the Russians call "lightish hair." The Russians had occupied the Turkic speaking region during previous times. While I was in the southernmost CCP-PRC I met some Uyghurs who looked as white to me as (darker haired) Scandinavians.

During the past week, three people the CCP says it has identified as Muslim Uyghurs in a jeep style vehicle conducted a suicide attack in Tianamen Square, a few kilometers from Zongnanhai which is Beijing's Kremlin, and at the entrance to the Forbidden City where a giant portrait of Chairman Mao is displayed.

The Uyghurs have fiercely resisted CCP rule, which has reduced a pre-occupation roughly 82% Uyghur ethnic majority population to a present population figure of 43% Uyghur versus the present 41% Han population.

Recent incidents include the 2007 Xinjiang raid by the People's Armed Police; a thwarted 2008 suicide bombing attempt on a China Southern Airlines Flight; the 2008 Xin Jiang attack which resulted in the deaths of sixteen police officers four days before the Beijing Olympics. Most recently, Uyghurs have fought the People's Armed Police in the July 2009 riots in the capital Urumqi and in the subsequent September 2009 resistance fighting in the countryside which led to the 2010 Aksu City bombing during the trials of 376 Uyghurs accused of fomenting insurrection.

Uyghur Muslims have the reputation of being so-called "moderate" Muslims, at least among the Muslim populations of Asia to include the Middle East (Asia Minor). There are recent independent reports however of jihadist Muslims entering Xin Jiang (New Frontier) and connecting with the small and marginalized few that are the long standing Uyghur East Turkistan Islamic Movement of radical militant Muslims, which is designated by the US and the UN as a terrorist group.

US Uyghur exile groups deny the Muslims of the occupied region are being militantly radicalized by the CCP's powerfully repressive armed internal security apparatus, which gets more money than does the CCP's military forces. Exiled Uyghurs say Beijing makes the accusation so it can justify to itself and to the world cracking down on the general population of the region. Violently repressed Uyghurs however walk every day in the presence of the PAP and among internal security agents that are on the lookout against the possibilities of popular unrest.

It looks like both realities are true.

Not sure when you last met some Scandinavians but Uighurs look like most of their Central Asian neighbours (see below). Perhaps they are the Scandinavians of Steely Dan's nightmare scenario!

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/images/uighurs.jpg

These 5 Uighurs are an interesting crew as they were residents of Gitmo having been swept up in Afghanistan/Pakistan in 2001/02.

The whole sorry story of the 22 Uighurs held at Gitmo is not a very edifying one to put it mildly. Of the original 22, most have been bundled off to Albania, El Salvador, Bermuda and Palau as they were recognized not to be "enemy combatants", yet 3 remain in Gitmo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_detainees_at_Guantanamo_Bay

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2008/10/09/from-guantanamo-to-the-united-states-the-story-of-the-wrongly-imprisoned-uighurs/

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/17/in-shadow-china-uighurs-released-from-guantanamo-languish-on-pacific-island/

Also post the 11th Sept 2001 attacks the East Turkistan Independence Movement was classified by the US State Dept as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (it has since been removed from this list).

The short lived First and Second East Turkistan Republics (1933-34 and 1944-49) were sponsored and supported by the Soviets intent on territorial acquisition at the expense of China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan_independence_movement

Basically Xinjiang is a sorry tale of realpolitik and outside meddling that does little to change its de facto status as a part of China today. While China is undoubtedly heavy handed in its policy to non-Han majority areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang, little is likely to change anytime soon. Free Tibet gets the celebrity endorsements, few people see to care much about Xinjiang and the handling of the 22 Uighur prisoners in Gitmo hardly puts the US in the driving seat.

Edited November 18, 2013 by folium

[boomerangutang]

When are they going to take down that giant poster of Chairman Mao?

Mao beats Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, ....as the person responsible for most deaths in the 20th century - the deadliest century for humans - ever. Oh, and 99% of those deaths (roughly 45 million) were his fellow Chinese.

For putting a dent in human overpopulation, he would be the poster-boy. So, for that reason, perhaps it's fitting that his portrait is still slapped all over China.

If I cause 1 Chinese death, I would get a quick trial and executed. He causes nearly 50 million deaths and he's a timeless hero.

Edited November 19, 2013 by boomerangutang

[Credo]

The dead don't complain.

[Publicus]

When are they going to take down that giant poster of Chairman Mao?

Mao beats Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, ....as the person responsible for most deaths in the 20th century - the deadliest century for humans - ever. Oh, and 99% of those deaths (roughly 45 million) were his fellow Chinese.

For putting a dent in human overpopulation, he would be the poster-boy. So, for that reason, perhaps it's fitting that his portrait is still slapped all over China.

If I cause 1 Chinese death, I would get a quick trial and executed. He causes nearly 50 million deaths and he's a timeless hero.

Yeah, even the CCP itself teaches in the schools of the PRC that Mao was "seventy percent right."

That's quite a confession, made out of an abundance of caution against such a leader ever again.

I'd say George Washington was 98% right, human slavery being the common failing of his time.

And obviously, Washington led the fight against colonialism rather than running around imposing it wherever he could as Mao was bent to do.