Attack kills 16 police days before the Olympics

Attack kills 16 police days before the Olympics
In this June 18, 2008 file photo, a Chinese paramilitary officer keeps watch over spectators and journalists at Aitigar Square during the Olympic torch relay in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, China. Two men rammed a dump truck into a group of jogging policemen and then tossed grenades into their barracks Monday, Aug. 4, 2008, killing 16 officers and wounding others in Kashgar in the China's restive Central Asian border province, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago
In an audacious and deadly attack just days ahead of the Beijing Olympics, two men from a mainly Muslim ethnic group rammed a truck and hurled explosives at jogging policemen in China's restive far west Monday, killing 16.
The attack in a city near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border brought an immediate response from China's Olympic organizers, who pronounced security precautions ready to ensure safety in Beijing and other Olympic venues when the games open Friday.
Yet the timing so close to opening day heightened the attack's shock value and bore the hallmarks of local Muslim militants, said Li Wei, a counterterrorism expert affiliated with the government.
It also came as athletes, Olympic dignitaries and journalists poured into Beijing for an Olympics that some Chinese want to leverage to get the government to address festering grievances. Migrant workers cheated on pay for construction, homeowners angry about pollution and other disgruntled residents believe the government would help them rather than see the Olympics disrupted.
On Monday, about 20 people evicted from their homes for urban renewal projects staged a small demonstration a few blocks from Tiananmen Square only to be surrounded by police.
"We don't oppose the Olympics. But it's wrong for them to demolish our house. It's wrong," said Liu Fumei, who scuffled with women from the government-backed neighborhood committee who pulled Liu and the other protesters away.
The risk for the communist government is that the ferment could disrupt an Olympics it spent more than $40 billion to make a perfect showcase for China. "Pursuing peace, progress, coexistence in harmony and harmonious development" was how Chinese President Hu Jintao described the Chinese people's Olympic hopes to foreign media last week.
Monday's attack in Xinjiang also underscored that with so much security focused on Beijing, areas far from game venues make tempting targets that could also diminish China's Olympic moment.
"We've made preparations for all possible threats," Beijing Olympic organizing committee spokesman Sun Weide told reporters when asked about the Xinjiang attack. "We believe, with the support of the government, with the help of the international community, we have the confidence and the ability to host a safe and secure Olympic Games."
Xinjiang has for decades seen a sporadically violent rebellion by a local Muslim Turkic ethnic group known as Uighurs against Chinese rule. An extremist Uighur group believed to be based across the mountainous border in Pakistan's tribal frontier threatened in a video tape last month to target the Olympics. And military and police commanders have said Uighurs fighting for what they call an independent East Turkistan pose the biggest threat to the games.
In Monday's attack, two Uighur men rammed a dump truck into 70 border patrol paramilitary police as they passed the Yiquan Hotel during a routine early morning jog in the city of Kashgar, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
After the truck hit an electrical pole, the pair jumped out, ignited the homemade explosives and "hacked the policemen with knives," Xinhua said. The assailants, ages 28 and 33, were arrested, the report said.
There were no civilian casualties as few people were on the streets so early in the day, state media and witnesses said. Though Xinhua put the time of the attack at 8 a.m., China officially has one time zone,discount mbt, geared toward Beijing, 2,200 miles to the east.
Fourteen officers were killed on the spot and two others died on the way to the hospital, while another 16 officers were wounded, Xinhua said.
Witnesses said police immediately closed off streets. The Nationalities Hospital, down the street from the explosion, was sealed off and people were ordered to stay inside, said a man answering phones at the hospital duty office. By early afternoon, unarmed uniformed police patrolled the area, stopping a few people to inspect their bags.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzales Gallegos condemned the attack, saying the United States was "saddened at the loss of life and injuries caused by the attack and extend our condolences to the victims and their families."
Monday's attack was all the more surprising because it follows years of intensive security measures in Xinjiang. A wave of violence in the 1990s mainly targeted police, officials and Uighurs seen as collaborators. Separatists also staged nearly simultaneous explosions on three public buses in the provincial capital of Urumqi.
In response, the government stationed more paramilitary units in the region and shut unregistered mosques and religious schools seen as hotbeds of anti-government extremism.
Uighurs, however, complain that restrictions on religious practice m students are not allowed to go to mosques, for example m and a high police presence has further alienated people who already felt displaced by an influx of Chinese migrants they feel are taking the best jobs.
"In practice, Uighurs have lost all political rights," Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based pro-independence World Uighur Congress, said in an e-mail. "Especially in the vast countryside heavily populated by Uighurs, the Chinese government has rolled out a political movement without end or reason that is unbearable to the Uighur peasantry. The entire Uighur people live in a blanket state of fear."
For the government, the security clampdown has largely succeeded in suppressing attacks, allowing security forces to disrupt plots before they are carried out, sometimes in violent raids. Li, the counterterrorism expert, said one raid recently broke up a terrorist cell in Xi'an, a city in central China. Police also shot and killed five people in an alleged cell in Urumqi last month.
Initial reports seemed to show that Monday's attack was carried out by separatists based in Xinjiang and not Uighurs from across the border, some of whom have received training from al-Qaida and Pakistan's Taliban, said Li, who works at China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a think-tank with ties to the government's main spy agency.
"This time they actually managed to carry out their plan, but it will not affect the Olympics greatly," said Li, who works at China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a think-tank affiliated with the government's main spy agency. "The threat from East Turkestan forces exist, but their capabilities are limited."
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Attackers in western China kill 16 border officers
Chinese paramilitary police on duty along the streets of Shenyang, China, Monday, Aug. 4, 2008. Two men rammed a dump truck Monday into a group of jogging policemen and tossed explosives, killing 16 officers, state media said, in an attack in restive western China that added to already high tensions days before the Beijing Olympics.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press WriterMon Aug 4, 9:43 AM ET
Two men rammed a truck into a group of jogging policemen and tossed explosives, killing 16 officers Monday in an attack in a restive province of western China just days before the Beijing Olympics, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Though it happened on the far side of the country m near the Afghan-Pakistan border m the attack came as security forces were on alert for the Games, which open Friday. It was among the deadliest and most brazen attacks in years in Xinjiang province, site of a sporadically violent rebellion by local Muslims against Chinese rule.
About 20 people upset at having been evicted from their homes staged a brief demonstration near Tiananmen Square, Beijing's heavily guarded political center. Uniformed police quickly surrounded the group until members of a neighborhood committee came and pulled the protesters away, scuffling with some.
In the Xinjiang attack, the two men drove a dump truck into the group of border patrol police officers as they passed the Yiquan Hotel during a routine 8 a.m. jog in the city of Kashgar, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
After the truck hit an electrical pole, the pair jumped out, ignited homemade explosives and "also hacked the policemen with knives," Xinhua said.
Fourteen died on the spot and two others en route to a hospital, and at least 16 officers were wounded, Xinhua said.
Police arrested the two attackers, one of whom was injured in the leg, the report said.
Authorities closed off streets, sealed the Nationalities Hospital down the street from the explosion, and ordered people to stay inside, said a man answering phones at the hospital duty office.
Local government officials declined comment Monday. An officer in the district police department said an investigation was launched.
Kashgar, or Kashi in Chinese, is a tourist city that was once an oasis trading center on the Silk Road caravan routes and lies 80 miles from the border with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. Its mountainous, remote environs have allegedly provided cover for terrorist training camps, one of which Chinese police raided early last year.
Chinese security forces have been on edge for months, citing a number of foiled plots by Muslim separatists and a series of bombings around China in the run-up to the Olympics. Last week, a senior military commander said radical Muslims who are fighting for what they call an independent East Turkistan in Xinj...