Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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August 10, 2008

Muslim Separatists Blamed for Blasts in China's Xinjian Region  
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Attackers threw homemade explosives, seven of the attackers and one
security guard died in bombing 
Suspected Muslim separatists armed with homemade grenades attacked a
government office complex in far west China early Sunday. The renewed
violence left eight people dead and comes two days into the Olympic
games in Beijing. Stephanie Ho has more on the story. Security has been
tightened in Kuqa, following several blasts there in the pre-dawn hours
of Sunday morning. The town is 3,000 kilometers west of Beijing.Ethnic
minority child stands near a car window shattered near the site of a
bomb blast in Kuqa, 10 Aug 2008The state-run Xinhua news agency says the
attackers drove a taxi to the local public security office and other
sites and threw homemade explosives.A total of eight people were
reported killed in the incident - seven of the attackers and one
security guard, who died in the bombing.Police shot dead three attackers
and four others are reported to have blown themselves up after they were
surrounded by police. Authorities captured one suspect.China says the
pe!
 rpetrators are militants seeking an independent East Turkestan homeland
for Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang region.The Beijing Olympic organizing
committee's Wang Wei repeated this accusation in comments to reporters.
"The attacks by Eastern Turkestan terrorists have never stopped in the
Xinjiang region. The very purpose of their attacks is all about
separating the region from China, and such a behavior would not be
tolerated by any country in the world," said Wang.At the same time, Wang
says he believes the attackers are taking advantage of the world's
attention on China because of the Olympics."Of course, I imagine they
want to leverage the platform of the Olympic games to magnify their
impact," said Wang. "I believe their very purpose of doing all this is
about separation."Sunday's attack in Kuqa follows a similar incident in
the Xinjiang city of Kashgar last week that left 16 policemen dead. It
also follows an overall tightening of security in Xinjiang because of!
  Chinese fears of simmering separatist sentiment.Human rights groups s
ay China is exaggerating the threat as an excuse to crackdown harder on
Uighurs.Dru Gladney, president of Pomona College's Pacific Basin
Institute, says it is hard to say whether the attacks were coordinated.
At the same time, he points out that although the attackers had
prepared, they did not have high-tech weapons. "There were bombs that
were either produced or stockpiled, and there were guns involved. But
that's still pretty low-level," said Gladney. "We're not looking at
IED's, buried bombs set off by cell phones, as we've seen in Afghanistan
and Iraq."

Gladney says the attacks are not a threat to the Olympics because they
happened very far away. He adds that at this point, there does not seem
to be any danger to the broader civilian population in Xinjiang. He
notes that the attacks have been specifically targeted at government
facilities, and not at public infrastructure, such as railroads, buses,
and airplanes.

 


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