Pat Dollard

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Aug 9, 2008

AFP

A series of bomb blasts followed by gunfire rocked a town in China’s mainly Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang Sunday leaving at least two people dead, state media said.

The explosions shook the town of Kuqa between 3:20 am (1920 GMT Saturday) and 4:00 am (2000 GMT), Xinhua news agency said. It said two people were killed but that the death toll could rise.

A separate Xinhua report said police were hunting for suspects, and that at least four or five suspects had been killed or injured. It was not clear whether these deaths were included in the previous toll.

The report did not say who was responsible, but the attack follows repeated threats by Muslim militants in Xinjiang to disrupt the Beijing Olympic Games and comes after an attack in the region last week left 16 police officers dead.

Police cordoned off the area where the explosions occurred, witnesses said and the military has moved to intervene, according to the Xinhua report which said the incident was followed by flashes of fire and sporadic gunshots.

Kuqa has a population of about 400,000 and is located about 740 kilometres (460 miles) from Urumqi, the regional capital of Muslim-majority Xinjiang.

Uighur separatists in Xinjiang have released two video statements threatening to attack the Olympics and Chinese authorities have also warned that “terrorists” from home and abroad pose a threat to the Games.

In one of the deadliest attacks in China in years, a group police officers out jogging in the town of Kashgar were attacked on August 4 by alleged Muslim militants using explosives and knifes, leaving 16 dead and 16 wounded.

Coming just four days before the start of the Olympic Games, the incident raised new fears about security at the event.

Chinese authorities on Friday announced they had stepped up controls on religious figures and potential “trouble-makers” in Kashgar to guard against future incidents.

China blamed the deadly August 4 incident, for which two men have been detained, on Islamic militant Uighur separatists.

Xinjiang, a vast area that borders Central Asia, has about 8.3 million ethnic Uighurs, many of whom express anger at what they say has been decades of repressive Communist Chinese rule.

Two short-lived East Turkestan republics emerged in Xinjiang in the 1930s and 1940s, when Chinese central government control was weakened by civil war and Japanese invasion.

China has accused Uighur militants of the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) of plotting attacks on the Beijing Olympics and has implemented sweeping security to protect athletes and spectators.

Critics say authorities in Beijing have exaggerated the terror threat to justify the repression of unhappy minorities such as the Uighurs.