MCLC: jihadis arrested in Beijing attack

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: jihadis arrested in Beijing attack
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Source: NYT (10/30/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/world/asia/china-says-5-jihadis-are-arres
ted-in-beijing-attack.html

China Says 5 Jihadis Are Arrested in Beijing Attack
By ANDREW JACOBS 

BEIJING — The Chinese authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest of
five people described as Islamic jihadists who they say helped orchestrate
an audacious attack on the political heart of the nation that left five
people dead.

In a brief message posted on its microblog account, the Beijing Public
Security Bureau said the men, all ethnic Uighurs from China’s western
Xinjiang region, had enlisted a family of three to drive a vehicle across
a crowded sidewalk on Monday and then ignite the car at the foot of the
Tiananmen Gate. Two tourists were killed and 40 people were injured as the
vehicle sped toward the entrance to the Forbidden City, just yards from
the iconic portrait of Chairman Mao.

The occupants of the car – identified by the police as Usmen Hasan, his
wife and his mother – died as it went up in flames. The police say that in
addition to gasoline and a gas canister, investigators recovered from the
vehicle two axes, metal clubs and a banner bearing “religious extremist
messages.” The police did not disclose the content of those messages.

“This was a violent terrorist act that was carefully planned and
organized,” the statement said.

The police said the five men were arrested 10 hours after the attack and
had confessed their involvement. They said investigators had discovered
long knives and a “jihadist” flag in the temporary residence where the
suspects were staying. It is unclear why the authorities delayed the
announcement of the arrests by more than a day.

The news was released after work hours, and the police did not immediately
respond to a faxed request for comment.

Like the event itself, news of the arrests was played down in the Chinese
media and most outlets carried only a brief statement from the official
Xinhua news agency 
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-10/30/c_132845270.htm>,
reflecting in part the government’s skittishness over an incident that
exposed security lapses at one of the most heavily guarded locations in
the country.

The attack is likely to prompt heightened security in Xinjiang, home to
most of China’s ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who subscribe to
a moderate brand of Sunni Islam. Concentrated in oasis towns in an arid
stretch of western China, Uighurs have long had an uneasy coexistence with
the ruling Han Chinese majority. But tensions have increased in recent
years, fueled by a surge in Han migration to the region, a widening income
gap and anger over policies that many locals say marginalize Uighur
culture and traditions.

The Chinese government often paints any resistance to its policies in
Xinjiang as acts of separatism. Violent clashes between protesters and the
police are invariably described as acts of terrorism, and in recent years,
Beijing has sought to blame outside agitators and Islamic extremists for
fomenting bloodshed in the region. Exile groups say that much of the
violence is a response to increasingly harsh policies that restrict
religious practices and favor Mandarin over the Uighur language in schools.

But until the Tiananmen attack, most of the violence had been confined to
Xinjiang, nearly 2,000 miles from the Chinese capital.

Rohan Gunaratna, an international terrorism expert at Nanyang
Technological University in Singapore, said the attack would help bolster
Beijing’s contention that Uighur Islamists have allied with a terrorist
group known as the East Turkestan Islamist Movement, or ETIM, and pose a
serious threat to the nation.

The United States has designated that group a terrorist organization, but
many Western analysts have played down its size and its ability to wage
attacks within China. Although the authorities did not immediately link
the attack to the group, Mr. Gunaratna said he thought the episode would
serve as a warning to those who have questioned its prowess. “It
demonstrates that whoever carried out this attack meticulously planned the
operation,” he said. “It is likely to be the future of terror operations.
These kinds of attacks are designed to inspire other groups.”

But Ilham Tohti, a Uighur scholar in Beijing, said he worried the
authorities would use the event to increase repression in Xinjiang. “I’m
very concerned for what comes next,” he said.

A vocal advocate for Uighur rights who is frequently confined to his home
by security personnel, Mr. Tohti questioned the sparse narrative issued by
the police, noting that media restrictions have in the past prevented
independent reporting on violent incidents involving Uighurs.

“I have a lot of questions about what happened,” he said in a telephone
interview. “It’s easy to point to a banner, but we’re only getting one
side of the story.”

Patrick Zuo contributed research.