The China Daily reported on January 22, 2005, that 13 persons werekilled and 18 others injured in two separate explosions in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region coinciding with the Eid-al-Adhareligious festival.
In the first incident, nine passengers were killed instantaneously and two others died subsequently following an explosion onJanuary 20, 2005, in a mini-bus carrying 18 persons at anoverpass called Dushanzi in Kuitun, in the Yili Kazahk Autonomous Prefecture.The place where the explosion took place is about 200 kms from the Kazakhborder. Most of the victims were reportedly ethnic minorities (Uighurs?) and notHan Chinese.
Liu Yaohua, head of the Public Security Department of the Autonomous Region, wasquoted as saying that 19 people were on the bus. A man and a woman got offduring the trip, while a man in his 40s, carrying a black canvas bag, got inwhen the bus approached the overpass. The blast took place at the right rear-endof the bus.
The official Hsinhua news agency reported that "explosivematerial" was responsible for the blast. It quoted Liu Yaohua as saying itwas difficult to determine what explosive material was used, and how itwas detonated. He added, however, that it was a "man-made" explosion,without saying whether it was caused by an improvised explosive device assembledwith a criminal intent.
While blasts caused by the careless handling of industrialexplosives and other hazardous materials are not unusual in China, due to poorenforcement of laws relating to the purchase, possession, storage and transportof industrial explosives, the French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted unnamed Chinese officials as saying that they cannot rule out thepossibility that the blast is linked to the separatist movement of the MuslimUighurs, the non-Han natives of the province, who have been fighting for anindependent State for the Uighurs of Xinjiang and the adjoining Central AsianRepublics (CARs) to be called East Turkistan.
While Chinese officials generally do not cover up news of such explosions, theyrarely release to the media the results of the enquiries held by them into theincidents. As a result, it is often difficult for the outside world to knowdefinitively what and who caused such explosion.
Another explosion was reported the same evening from the downtown area inUrumqi, capital of Xinjiang, killing two and injuring 11. Huang Gongyi, anofficial with the Urumqi Government, claimed that this incident was caused bynatural gas leakage. The explosion reportedly took place at apressure-adjusting station of a local gas pipeline firm. The local authoritiesare projecting this incident as purely accidental.
Sixty persons were killed and 200 others injured and over 20 motor vehicles wereseverely damaged on September 8,2000, following an explosion in a militaryvehicle traveling on the Xishan Road in the western suburbs of Urumqi. TheChinese authorities did not attribute the explosion to any criminal intent andsaid that it was purely an accidental explosion due to the carelesstransporting of old military explosives , which were being taken for beingdestroyed.
Though there was no evidence to doubt the Chinese claim that it was purely anaccidental explosion, certain unusual circumstances surrounding it led toconsiderable speculation as to whether it could have been purely an accident.The explosion occurred when the vehicle was caught in a traffic jam. It was notinvolved in any collision with another vehicle. On the day of the explosion, thethen Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji was touring the region. While it was notclear whether he was in Urumqi at the time of the explosion, he visitedthe injured in an Urumqi hospital the next day.Robert Rubin, former US TreasurySecretary and a senior official of Citigroup, was on a visit to Urumqi at thetime of the explosion. He had called on Zhu the next day and some Americanjournalists reported that during the meeting Zhu made no reference to theexplosion.
Erkin Ekrem, the leader of a pro-separatist group, was quoted by the AFP assaying, "This accident is very strange." He wondered what such a largequantity of explosives was doing in Urumqi. The local authoritiesimmediately set up a special task force to investigate the cause of theexplosion. The central Government sent a team of investigators led byVice-Minister of Public Security Tian Qiyu to Xinjiang. No separatist groupclaimed responsibility for the explosion. Following an explosion in a bus inBeijing in 1997 which resulted in some casualties, an Uighur separatist grouphad claimed responsibility for it, but the Chinese authorities dismissed theclaim and projected it as an accident.
In a report carried on November 30,2000, the South China Morning Posthad alleged that Yang Xiaofeng, the head of the "Lanzhou Daily" newscenter, was demoted, and two journalists of the LanzhouEvening News were dismissed by the authorities for violating "newsdiscipline" by reporting independently on the explosion instead of carryingthe version put out by Xinhua. as they were expected to. Though theirreports too did not mention any possible criminal intent, the sensitivity of theChinese authorities to any independent investigative reporting of the explosionraised eye-brows.
Government investigators were subsequently quoted as saying that the militaryvehicle had violated the regulations by carrying what was described as mixedexplosives and that the bumpy road caused the explosion. This was atvariance with eye-witness accounts that the explosion occurred when the vehiclewas stationery due to a traffic jam. Two senior military officers werereportedly dismissed and about 10 others punished for allegednegligence.
According to the South China Morning Post, the Lanzhou Dailyand the Lanzhou Evening News had sent reporters tothe site and covered the explosion with photos and first-hand reports even before the Xinhua had released the officially authorised account. Their reportswere picked up by many online news sites and sections of the internationalmedia.
Following the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, the authorities ofXinjiang mounted a publicity campaign to project the Uighur terrorist groups asforming part of the international jihadi terrorist movement inspired by Osamabin Laden and as having links with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Forthe first time, they admitted a number of terrorist incidents, which had takenplace in the region during the 1990s and many of which they had not publiclyadmitted before.
A press statement titled "Terrorist Activities Perpetrated by "EasternTurkistan" Organizations and Their Links with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban"issued by the regional authorities on November 29, 2001, gave thefollowing details of their activities:
The "Eastern Turkistan" force has a total of over 40 organizations. They have engaged themselves in terrorist violence to varying degrees, bothovertly and covertly. Among these organizations, eight openly advocateviolence in their political platforms. They are: "Eastern TurkistanIslamic Resistance Movement" in Turkey; "Eastern Turkistan LiberationOrganization", "Eastern Turkistan International Committee", "UnitedCommittee of Uygurs’ Organizations" in Central Asia, and "Central AsianUygur Hezbollah" in Kazakhstan; "Turkistan Party" in Pakistan; "EasternTurkistan Islamic Movement" in Afghanistan; and "Eastern Turkistan YouthLeague" in Switzerland.
Incidents of terrorist violence perpetrated by "Eastern Turkistan" elementsover the past 10 years in the Chinese territory mainly include: