Islamists Kill 16 Policemen in China
[Guest post by DRJ]
The BBC reports that, just days before the Beijing Olympics begin, Islamists in China’s Xinjiang region attacked and killed 16 policemen and wounded 16 more at a border post:
“Two attackers reportedly drove up to the post in a rubbish truck and threw two grenades, before moving in to attack the policemen with knives.”
Reports state the attackers have been captured.
Xinjiang is described as a Muslim region on the border of Tajikistan, home to the Uighur people who have waged a “low-level separatist campaign” against the Chinese government. Although Xinjiang is 2,500 miles from Beijing, the BBC reporter indicated that “the very fact that it happened, and the fact that it happened this week, will make the organisers of the Beijing Olympics nervous.”
Chinese military officers have previously warned that Islamic separatists are the greatest danger to the Beijing Olympics.
— DRJ
How can that be? The religion of peace killing people. Crazies in a sect kill people, religious people do not kill. Well, except for Islamist, they murder all the time with the crazy Pedophile leaders blessing.
Scrapiron (d671ab) — 8/4/2008 @ 9:36 pmSeems to me that attacking China is the dumbest thing Islamist terrorists could do.
You’d think they’d want to drive a wedge between the U.S. and China. Uniting global superpowers behind a common enemy? Not so smart, if you’re that enemy.
LYT (b67340) — 8/4/2008 @ 10:14 pmI don’t feel like a lot of deep global impact thought goes into jihad at this level.
SteveG (71dc6f) — 8/4/2008 @ 10:35 pmIslam is the religion of combustion to these fools.
Anyone think they might be out to recreate Munich? Or 9/11 on an Olympic venue?
Drumwaster (5ccf59) — 8/4/2008 @ 10:39 pmIt seems like extremist Muslims are also largely decentralized and disconnected from each other, especially separatist movements like this. If that’s true, one group may be doing things that meet their goals but are in conflict with the goals of other groups.
DRJ (9d1be2) — 8/4/2008 @ 10:58 pmDrumwaster,
I think there’s always some group that wants to recreate Munich, although their targets may vary.
DRJ (9d1be2) — 8/4/2008 @ 11:00 pmI’d bet these guys don’t have the ability to pull off anything across the length of China from their home bases.
SteveG (71dc6f) — 8/4/2008 @ 11:54 pmChina is pretty repressive, and the Muslims are easy to distinguish visually from Han Chinese. So without the worries of discrimination laws and PC behavior, the Chinese will just detain anyone who looks Uighur
SteveG, that assertion is not true. The Hui people are ethnically no different from that of the Han Chinese, save practice of Islam, and are spread across China including neighborhoods in Beijing I personally visited.
Muslims in China may feel that a Munich 1972 style massacre would give them global attention and credibility, strike at the heart of the Chinese regime’s ability to preserve order and safety. In the most public arena.
It’s practically guaranteed some attempt will be made to kill lots of people in Beijing. The ugly desire for power and control makes that tragically inevitable. I just hope the Chinese police can stop it. While the PRC may be less encumbered by civil rights, good police work is good police work the world over.
Which is probably what is vital now.
whiskey (e09923) — 8/5/2008 @ 12:18 amXinjiang is described as a Muslim region on the border of Tajikistan, home to the Uighur people who have waged a “low-level separatist campaign” against the Chinese government … Chinese military officers have previously warned that Islamic separatists are the greatest danger to the Beijing Olympics.
Sorta puts the kibosh on the idea that the Tibetans are the “separatists” that the ChiComs need to worry about.
Right, nk?
L.N. Smithee (14949d) — 8/5/2008 @ 12:44 amI wonder. Which option gets a Muslim more virgins?
Paul Albers (0c58f4) — 8/5/2008 @ 2:20 amKilling as a suicide bomber, or dying a death of a thousand cuts.
Whiskey @ 8: The Uighurs are a Turkic people from central asia, and ethnically different (and easily distinguishable) from both the majority Han and the Muslim Hui who are distributed throughout China. The Uighurs gripe is basically the same as that of the Tibetans – that Beijing has systematically dismantled their culture by encouraging thousands of Han to emigrate to their lands on the far margins of China, lands that at various times in the past have been within and outside from the Chinese empire.
charles (1046b6) — 8/5/2008 @ 2:53 amSome claim that the Chinese government have exagerated the threat from Uighur seperatists, and even gone as far as fabricating attacks in the past, in order to justify brutal repression, executions and deportations to forced labour camps deep in the desert. There have been genuine attacks by Uighur seperatist, and no doubt some have trained in the camps just over the Karakoram in Pakistan but their struggle is more about regional autonomy than the global Jihad.
Of course, the Global War On Terror is music to the chinese authorities ears as it gives them every pretext to tighten their grip on the area, and comments like those here are a good indication of the amount of sympathy that the plight of the Uighars generates, i.e not much at all.
Sorta puts the kibosh on the idea that the Tibetans are the “separatists” that the ChiComs need to worry about.
Right, nk?
I’ll let you know after the nex meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, L.N. Smithee.
nk (0d3a2b) — 8/5/2008 @ 4:49 amI blame President Bush.
Racists.
JD (5f0e11) — 8/5/2008 @ 4:57 amI believe the people planning and carrying out these attacks will be quite surprised to learn that China does not share our delicate senseabilities when it comes to prison, right, and even basic health.
Enjoy the utter, unspeakable brutality, fuckers. REALLY glad I’m not one of you guys…
Scott Jacobs (425810) — 8/5/2008 @ 6:26 amwe’ll probably never even know what happens to them
Tlove (953364) — 8/5/2008 @ 6:38 amHehe… Probably not…
But I would be willing to wager on a guess or two… 🙂
Scott Jacobs (425810) — 8/5/2008 @ 6:43 amSpare parts.
nk (0d3a2b) — 8/5/2008 @ 7:41 amheh… I have an account I occationally put money into should I ever need an organ transplant…
It’s to pay for the trip to Hong Kong and the surgery… 🙂
Scott Jacobs (425810) — 8/5/2008 @ 7:51 amThat would be true, except fighting in Chechnya; which actually inspired Al Midhar, Al Hazmi and Moussaoui, to Jihad. In adddition, it had hade nasty blowback, with regards to Nord Ost and Beslan # 4 school. Imagine if someone from Fallujah took Lincoln Center hostage; and you’d get some clue of the impact; in the former case.However the Chechnyan experience didn’t make the Russians any more disposed to our efforts in Iraq, or Iran; for that matter.
Zinjiang by the way, is where Jack Bauer was going at the end of Season 5, so i’d say by that
narciso (d671ab) — 8/5/2008 @ 8:19 amreference, that it’s a bit tougher than say Abu Ghraib I doubt HRW and Amnesty will really make much of a fuss, though.
I hope the Mandarins in Peking are re-thinking their policy of playing footsie with the Muhlahs in Tehran,
Another Drew (8018ee) — 8/5/2008 @ 9:04 amwho are the ultimate financiers of these Islamic movements.
If not, they deserve the grief they’re getting, and going to get.
One cannot help but wonder how much of this is propoganda. These attacks could be from people opposed to communism in general. They could be our natural allies, except that the Chinese totally control the message and the access to the facts.
martin (30db2b) — 8/5/2008 @ 12:41 pm