China says 75 suspects held over far-west needle scare

Ethnic unrest , how nice !
Interesting how most of the "Ethnic Violence" around the world involve Muslims ?

BEIJING (Reuters) - Police have detained 75 suspects accused of joining in an wave of needle-stabbing attacks that authorities say have spread across ethnically-tense Xinjiang region in China's northwest, state radio reported on Tuesday.

Most detentions over the needle scare were concentrated in Urumqi, the regional capital, where Han Chinese residents rioted this month after accusing the government of failing to stamp out syringe attacks by Muslim Uighurs in late August.

The radio report said police had caught 75 suspects involved in 36 attacks. The region's top crime investigator, Huang Yabo, said 19 cases were in Urumqi and 13 in Hotan, also called Hetian, in southern Xinjiang, where Uighurs outnumber Han Chinese.

Huang said other cases occurred in mostly Uighur towns with a history of ethnic unrest...

On Saturday, a court in Urumqi announced jail sentences of up to 15 years against three stabbing suspects -- the first to appear before a judge over the scare.

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More Terrorist Attacks in China

The ever expanding Jihad. NY Times

BEIJING — The violence in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang rose sharply Sunday morning with the deaths of a security guard and at least 10 suspects after a daring series of bombings that began with a predawn assault on a police station, the state news media reported.

The attacks, coinciding with the first weekend of the Beijing Olympics, occurred less than a week after what the Chinese authorities had described as China’s worst terrorist assault in recent memory, in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar. Last Monday, two Uighur Muslims rammed a truck into a group of paramilitary officers who were doing their morning exercises, then attacked with explosives and knives, the authorities say. Sixteen officers were killed and several more were wounded.

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More recently, an obscure militant group, the Turkestan Islamic Party, released videos claiming responsibility for recent bus bombings in southwestern China and threatened to carry out attacks on the Olympics. Last week, IntelCenter, a private American group that monitors terrorism, concluded that this group was the same as ETIM.

The violence on Sunday erupted in Kuqa, a city of 400,000 people in the southern part of Xinjiang. None of the details could be independently confirmed, though witnesses in Kuqa said they had heard explosions. In all, the authorities said, 12 explosive devices were detonated in attacks on at least four local government buildings, a supermarket and hotels, state media reported.

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China Foils Terrorists Planning Attacks on Olympics

Who really knows if these are really terrorists? Especially since it's coming from the commies. But, then again China does have a problem with a certain religious group in the western Xinjiang region. Reuters

BEIJING, July 10 (Reuters) - China said on Thursday that it had foiled five "terrorism groups" plotting attacks targeting the Beijing Olympics, as the government cracks down on perceived threats to the Games which open in less than a month.

In the first six months of the year, police detained 82 people in the restive far western Xinjiang region who had plotted to sabotage the Olympics, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, citing Chen Zhuangwei, police chief of regional capital Urumqi.

"Police in the regional capital also detained 66 gang members of the 'three evil forces' of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and destroyed 41 training bases of 'holy war' from January to June," Xinhua quoted Chen as saying.

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he government says it has foiled a string of terrorist plots this year hatched from Xinjiang, a mainly Muslim region where Beijing accuses militant Uighurs of working with al Qaeda to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan.

Xinhua on Wednesday said that Chinese police had shot and killed five people they said were seeking "holy war" against the country's dominant Han Chinese.

In April, public security officials said authorities had foiled plots to kidnap athletes and carry out suicide attacks during August's Games. China earlier said had foiled a plan by Uighur separatists to bring down a Beijing-bound plane.

Many Uighurs resent the migration of Han Chinese to the region and government controls on their religion and culture.

But Uighur advocacy groups deny separatists are plotting attacks in Xinjiang and accuse China of embarking on a pre-Olympic security crackdown targeting activists seeking greater freedom for the region.

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