Monday August 4, 2008

Bomb attack kills 16 in China days before Games

By Emma Graham-Harrison

KASHGAR, China (Reuters) - Chinese police said a bomb attack that killed 16 police in the western Xinjiang region on Monday was a "suspected terrorist" attack, four days before the Beijing Olympic Games, state media reported.

A paddle is seen near footwear at a training session for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 4, 2008. Chinese police said a bomb attack that killed 16 police in the western Xinjiang region on Monday was a "suspected terrorist" attack, four days before the Beijing Olympic Games, state media reported. (REUTERS/Darren Whiteside)

The Xinhua news agency said two assailants drove a truck towards exercising border police officers in Kashgar, home of many ethnic Uighurs resentful of Chinese control of the region.

"One of the attackers drove a tip lorry to hit a team of more than 70 policeman who were jogging to pass the Yiquan Hotel in a regular morning exercise at about 8:00 a.m. (0:00 GMT)," said the English-language report.

"The other suspect threw an explosive towards the gate of the station. The driver then abandoned the lorry to throw explosive at the policemen" after veering into a roadside pole.

Sixteen police were killed and another 16 wounded. Police detained the two attackers on the spot, and identified them as two Uighur men aged 23 and 28. Police suspected it was a "terrorist attack" carried out using homemade explosive devices.

Kashgar was calm late on Monday evening, with a heavy security presence around the site, which had been cleared up apart from a tarpaulin over the front of the building.

A crowd gathered at the scene and was dispersed forcefully by security personel with batons.

Security forces chased two Reuters reporters down the street, waving batons, and slammed a camera into the face of an unidentified bystander trying to take pictures.

One Han Chinese resident, who would only give his family name of Zhang, said he was not worried by the incident. "I don't this is a terrorist attack, so I'm not scared," he said.

ARM BLOWN OFF

Xinjiang's largely Muslim Uighurs have been a focus of China's strict nationwide security in the run-up to the Games. Officials have said militants seeking an independent "East Turkestan" homeland are among the biggest threats.

Many Uighurs resent Chinese controls on religion and the expanding ethnic Han Chinese presence in Xinjiang, a region rich in energy and mineral resources.

Some Uighur groups seek an independent homeland, and China has said militants have forged ties with al Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir and other Islamist groups.

Xinhua earlier said the bombers had also "hacked the policemen with knives", but omitted that in a later report.

The driver was rushed to hospital after he "blew up" one of his arms igniting explosive, it said. Surgeons had amputated his arm to save his life.

Police had recovered "10 homemade explosives", a homemade hand gun and four knives from the vehicle.

The attack occurred when most residents were still in their beds and no civilians were killed, Xinhua said. All parts of China are set to Beijing time, making mornings dark in the west.

Police "got clues suggesting that the 'East Turkestan Islamic Movement' planned to make terrorist attacks during Aug. 1-8, just ahead of the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing," the agency added.

Kashgar is a heavily Muslim market city of some 200,000 in Xinjiang's south, close to China's borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan and central Asian states. The Olympic relay torch passed through the city in June under intense security. Officials there contacted by telephone gave no more details.

Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for the monitoring group Human Rights Watch who has long studied Xinjiang, said the attack was "the most serious incident recorded in years".

"Ahead of the Olympics, it is a very powerful symbolic attack because security in Xinjiang is at an all-time high."

China has said it has foiled terrorist plots targeting the Olympics and in the first six months of the year police detained dozens of people in Xinjiang for plotting to sabotage the Games, according to state media.

Human rights critics and exiled Uighurs say Beijing has exaggerated the threat of violence in Xinjiang and stirred discontent by encouraging the migration of millions of Han Chinese into the region. Uighurs now make up slightly less than half of its 20 million people, according to official statistics.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley and Ian Ransom)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics; and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)

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