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Uighur group claims China bus attacks, threatens Olympics Sat Jul 26, 3:14 AM ET A Uighur separatist group has taken credit for a deadly bus bombing in Shanghai in May and warned of new attacks in China during the Olympics, a group monitoring threats by extremists on the Internet said. In a video statement, Commander Seyfullah of the Turkestan Islamic Party claimed credit for several attacks, including the May 5 Shanghai bus bombing which killed three; another Shanghai attack; an attack on police in Wenzhou on July 17 using an explosive-laden tractor; a bombing of a Guangzhou plastic factory on...

French arrest 10 in connection with terror probe By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer Authorities in France, Germany and the Netherlands on Friday detained at least 10 people suspected of helping to fund al-Qaida-linked militants with roots in Uzbekistan, officials said. One suspect was detained in Germany, another in the Netherlands, with the rest detained in France, said a senior French police official who was only authorized to discuss the arrests on condition of anonymity. The suspects' nationalities were not given but officials said they were Turkic-speaking. French police suspect they collected funds for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a...

BEIJING - Chinese police raided an alleged terrorist camp in a western mountain region near the border with Pakistan, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17, a police official said Monday. Song Hongli, director of the general office of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, said the raid occurred Friday at a training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM. One police officer was killed and another was injured in the shoot-out, Song said. Police are searching for suspects who are believed to have escaped during the raid, Song said, but did not say how many. Police found 22...

Authorities in Central Asia suggest that an outlawed group responsible for terrorist attacks in the past poses a renewed threat in the region. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was thought to have been largely destroyed in the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan. But officials in Tajikistan have blamed several recent incidents on the IMU, and they say the group has been increasingly active since an uprising was suppressed in neighboring Uzbekistan eight months ago. The most recent mention by Tajik officials came on 27 January from Abdugaffor Qalandarov, the chief prosecutor in Tajikistan's northern Soghd Province. Qalandarov was speaking...

When the wave of protest hit the capital, President Akaev’s 15-year-old regime proved to have no defenses.OSH, Kyrgyzstan--When the end came, it looked swift. An opposition demonstration that began at 11:30 in the morning ended three and a half hours later with the president’s offices being stormed. Four and a half hours later, the opposition announced that President Askar Akaev had fled Kyrgyzstan. The collapse was complete: Within the space of half a day, a president of 15 years had been toppled and had then fled, his prime minister has resigned, a leading allegedly political prisoner have been freed, an...

Opposition Protesters Take Over South Kyrgyz City Sun Mar 20, 2005 05:19 PM ET By Michael Steen DZHALAL ABAD, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) - Thousands of people stormed government buildings on Sunday and at least four policemen were reported beaten to death as protests against President Askar Akayev swelled in southern Kyrgyzstan. Akayev, who has run the Central Asian country since it became independent in 1990, warned last week that any attempt to copy the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, another ex-Soviet state, could lead to civil war. The opposition, protesting against what it says were rigged parliamentary elections, effectively seized control of...

I have had reports Bin Laden made a deal with China and had been hiding in Turkestan with an agreement to wipe out anti-Beijing rebels in exchange for sanctuary. Have also heard US Special Forces and Pakistani special ops soldiers have been waiting at the border just waiting to pounce after diplomacy arranges an okay to strike across the border. The ten-car convoy was spotted by a couple of cruising Indian Air Force jet pilots, who went in for a closer look. Between October 17 and October 19, an Indian air force reconnaissance plane picked him up in the Tibet-Laddakh...

China's most-wanted terrorist suspect has been killed in a joint US and Pakistani military operation, according to Chinese state media. The death of Hasan Mahsum, a leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) from China's mainly Muslim north-western region of Xinjiang, could not immediately be confirmed and the state media reports were removed from newspaper websites yesterday.However, if true, Mr Mahsum's demise would offer a big boost to Beijing's efforts to link its crackdown on pro-independence activity in Xinjiang to the wider US-led "war on terror".Earlier this month, China had put Mr Mahsum's name at the head of its...

Though it's been 24 years since I read it, David Markish's Reshit is still etched vividly in my mind; not only because of its touching account of a Jewish boy's experiences in the godforsaken steppes of Soviet Kazakhstan, but particularly because of his description of a huge herd of wild horses that come out of nowhere stampeding through the hick town where Markish and his mother had been exiled after his father's execution by Stalin, along with other Jewish cultural icons. The boy and his mother were eventually released from that hellhole after Stalin's death (and eventually moved to Israel),...

<p>XINJIANG, China - In five years of living in and traveling around Asia, I frequently scoffed at foreigners' stories of places that had been ``ruined'' by modernization, of destinations I had to visit before they were wrecked. For instance, while some people visiting Bangkok thought it an ugly, modern city, I saw a metropolis that had managed to expand without losing its uniquely Thai identity.</p>

Amnesty International recently issued an extensive report on the policies of the Chinese government towards the Uighur minority in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR).1 The 24-page document details the various legislative provisions recently introduced into Chinese law with a view to curbing “terrorist, separatist and illegal religious activities.” Loosely translated, China is attempting to create domestic legal sanctions for the post-September 11th crackdown on Muslims and Islam in XUAR. By no means is a Chinese crackdown on organized religion unique; China has a long-standing antagonism towards religion, as evidenced by the highly publicized crack down on the Falun Gong sect...