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WASHINGTON: A Muslim separatist group in China has threatened to
attack planes and ground transport at the Beijing Olympics, a US
intelligence monitoring group said Thursday.
The threat, accompanied by a call for Muslims to
keep their children away from the Olympics, was issued in a nearly
six-minute video warning of “fire targeted at China.”
The video depicts flames consuming a Beijing
Olympics logo and an explosion over a venue for the competition, and
features a masked, turbaned speaker clutching what appears to be an
assault rifle.
Washington-based IntelCenter released a copy of
the recording, attributed to the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), an
ethnic Uighur and Muslim organization seeking to create an
independent state out of China’s heavily Muslim Xinjiang province.
According to IntelCenter’s translation, a TIP
activist named Abdullah Mansour warns of attacks on public transport
at the Olympics.
He urges Muslims to keep away for their safety.
“Please do not be around Chinese people while in the same
building, in the same shop, in the same bus or same train. Please do
not fly with Chinese people in the same airplane.”
Mansour says his underground organization has
“declared war against China. We oppose China’s occupation of our
homeland of East Turkestan . . . because this system is based on
atheism.”
IntelCenter, a company providing intelligence
analysis, said previous attacks carried out by the TIP meant the
Olympics threat was “credible and should be taken seriously.”
A “biological threat cannot be completely
discounted, however, the much more likely type of attack would be
one utilizing explosive devices,” the center added.
IntelCenter said in July that TIP had taken
credit in another video statement for a deadly bus bombing in
Shanghai in May and warned of new attacks in China during the
Olympics.
In that recording, Commander Seyfullah of TIP
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 explosives-laden tractor; a
bombing of a Guangzhou plastic factory on July 17; and bombings of
three buses in Yunnan province on July 21.
Three people were killed as a result of the
explosion on the crowded bus in Shanghai on May 5, police and
witnesses said.
The incident during the morning traffic rush
hour in northwest Shanghai also injured 12 people.
At the time, authorities attributed the blast to
flammable materials carried by a passenger.
But Seyfullah said the blast was the work of his
group, and warned of more explosions to come.
According to intelligence analysts Stratfor, the
Turkestan Islamic Party is another name used by the Islamic Party of
East Turkestan (ETIM), an ethnic Uighur and Muslim separatist group
seeking to create an independent state out of China’s westernmost,
heavily Muslim Xinjiang province.
The United States, China and other countries
have designated ETIM a terrorist group.
-- AFP
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