China usually works hard to avoid admitting internal conflicts in their workers’ paradise, so when they go public with operations against any kind of dissidents, it’s significant. Beijing announced today that they had conducted a military operation against a terrorist training camp in its Xinjiang province, close to Central Asian republics struggling with al-Qaeda and other Islamists. However, as with all pronouncements by China, not all is as it seems:
China revealed the depth of its fear of Islamic-linked violence yesterday when police disclosed that they had killed 18 terrorists and captured another 17 after a fierce battle at a secret training camp in a remote northwestern region.
It was the first time that China had announced the discovery of such a camp in its territory. Officials said that they had uncovered links between the activists and international terrorist groups, hinting at connections to al-Qaeda.
The clash in the Pamir mountains on Friday was one of the deadliest for years in the restive Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, where 8.5 million Muslims make up most of the population. One policeman was killed and a second wounded.
Police said that the camp, in Akto county, was run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim). It is listed as a terrorist group by the US, at China’s insistence, despite concerns among Beijing-based diplomats over lack of evidence.
Firearms and 22 grenades, plus materials to produce another 1,500 such devices, were seized at the camp, Xinjiang police said. Officials declined to reveal other details, saying that they would release information only as part of a manhunt for fugitives.
The raid took place in the westernmost part of China, just north of Tibet and adjacent to Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. The region has produced the most virulent of the radical Islamists, and the tribal associations in the area would lend credence to China’s assertion that the Uighers have allied with AQ and set up a training camp there. Some reports have the Uighers setting up mining operations in the remote mountains to finance their terrorist network.
However, some experts have thrown a little cold water on the Chinese assertions of links to al-Qaeda. The specific area in which the camp was found is mostly populated by Tajiks, not Uighers. The ethnic Tajiks have not supported the Uigher movement to create an independent state in the imposing hill country. Furthermore, the ETIM have mostly disbanded, according to the Times’ intel sources, after the death of their leader three years ago. The Uighers have primarily wanted an independent state not for religious reasons, but economic; the Han have taken most of the jobs in Xinjiang with the apparent support of Beijing, displacing the native Uighers.
Undoubtedly, Islamists have stirred the pot in Xinjiang, given their proximity in the neighboring nations. With 8.5 million Muslims living in the province, the Islamists would want to peel the area away from Chinese control and create a transit point for terrorists and supplies that would allow them to bypass military opposition, especially in Afghanistan and even in Pakistan. It would also make an excellent hiding place for certain high-value targets, who know very well that the Americans would not dare invade China to find them.
Even granting all of that, China’s record inspires little confidence that they are telling the truth about their operations in Xinjiang. It would be very easy for China to conduct a harsh military crackdown on an ethnic minority and claim it as a counterterrorism mission.