The phenomenon of Jundullahs (Soldiers of Allah), which refers to angry youngMuslims not belonging to any organisation taking to acts of reprisal terrorism,has spread from Pakistan to the Muslim majority Xinjiang Autonomous Region ofChina. Jundullahs were believed responsible for most of the acts of suicideterrorism in Pakistan last year.
Unlike the Jundullahs of Pakistan, those of Xinjiang have not so far resortedto suicide terrorism. Their attacks have been against selected hard targets suchas border police guards, offices of the Public Security Department and other governmentoffices. They have carefully avoided causing fatalities among innocentcivilians. Their targets have been mainly Han Chinese working for the governmentin Xinjiang. They have avoided killing even Han civilians. Their modus operandiinvolved use of local materials of an unsophisticated nature such as tins filledwith gasoline and home-made hand-grenades. They travelled to the scene ofthe attack in cars-- some of them stolen taxis driven by fellow-Jundullahs.When they did not have any explosive material or guns at their disposal, theyhave used knives to cause fatalities. In one incident, they used a heavytruck to run over 16 jogging police guards in Kashgar.
The Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan (IMET), a Pakistan (NorthWaziristan) based Uighur organisation, which the Chinese authorities usedto blame in the past for such incidents, draws its volunteers mainly from themembers of the Uighur diaspora in Pakistan, the Central Asian Republics (CARs)and Turkey. Subsequently, the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) or Group, also based inNorth Waziristan, was suspected by them. This was evident from a number ofqueries received by me from readers in China of the article about the IJU written by me in September 2007, Uzbeks Lead The Global Jihad.This article has had a large number of readers in China.
After the latest three incidents -- one before the inauguration of theBeijing Olympics and two after-- the Chinese authorities seem to be confused.The perpetrators of these three incidents-- including four women, one of them a15-year-old girl-- were local residents of the areas where their attacks tookplace. There is so far no evidence that they had ever travelled outside Xinjiangand underwent training in any camp of either the IMET or the IJU. The Chineseauthorities are for the present not connecting these three incidents to eitherof these organisations.
From the evidence available so far, these three incidents seem to have beenin reprisal for the public execution of two Uighurs in Kashgar on July 9 on acharge of participating in the activities of the IMET. These two executions andthe subsequent forcible closure of about 40 allegedly illegal mosques havecaused a wave of anger among the local residents, who have been taking to actsof reprisal. Some foreign-based Uighur organisations, with suspected links tothe IMET, have claimed credit for these incidents in their web sites orstatements, but their claims have not so far been corroborated.
The three recent incidents which have mystified the authorities are:
August 4, 2008: Fourteen border police guards were killed on the spotand two others succumbed to injuries later when a 28-year-old taxi driverlater identified by the name Kurbanjan Hemit, a resident of Kashgar, drove astolen truck into a group of 70 police guards jogging on the road in themorning. Initially, the Chinese authorities had claimed that they were killed byhome-made explosives and knives, but subsequent reports indicated that they werecrushed to death under a truck. The driver had an accomplice, who was also anative of Kashgar. He was identified as Abdurrahman Azat, a 33-year-oldvegetable vendor. He had placed himself with a mobile telephone outside theborder police post. He reportedly informed the driver as soon as thepolice guards came out and started jogging on the road. As the truck ran overthem, the vegetable vendor threw a home-made bomb at the police post and killedsome of the injured with a knife used for cutting vegetables. Both the attackerswere arrested and are under interrogation.
August 10, 2008: Between 3 and 4 AM, 15 Uighurs in different taxisdrove round the town of Kuqa (pronounced Kucha), located midway on the railwayline between Kashgar and Urumqi, the capital of the province, and threwhome-made hand-grenades and tins filled with gasoline at the local office of thePublic Security Department, other government offices, hotels and shops owned byHans. Since there were not many people on the road at such an early hour in themorning, there were only two fatalities, a police officer and a civilian. Thepolice, who were initially taken by surprise, subsequently managed to corner theattackers and shot dead eight of them. Two blew themselves up with hand-grenades in order to escape capture. Two, including a 15-year-old Uighur girl (HailiqiemuAbulizi), who was badly injured by a hand-grenade, were captured. Threemanaged to escape.The Germany-based East Turkestan Information Center (ETIC)said that "East Turkestan freedom and independence fighters attacked aParty building … a people’s government building, a tax office, bazaarmanagement, and brothel on Aug. 10." It added that the attackers, sevenmen and four women, were "martyred."
August 12, 2008: At the town of Yamanya, about 30 Kms from Kashgar, anunspecified number of persons jumped out of a vehicle at a road check-point andstabbed to death three security guards, who were stopping and checking vehicles.A fourth guard was badly injured. It is not known what happened to theattackers.
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.
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