China says seven "terror cells" found in Kashgar

Wed Jun 3, 2009 12:20am EDT

BEIJING, June 3 (Reuters) - China uncovered seven "terror cells" in the western frontier city of Kashgar in the first four months of 2009, the China Daily said on Wednesday, citing the city's party secretary.

The historic oasis city in the arid region of Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighurs, an ethnic group that often chafes under Chinese rule and resents an influx of Han Chinese workers from central China.

The area borders Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as central Asian states.

Kashgar party secretary Zhang Jian told the English language newspaper that extremists from neighbouring countries were able to "remote control" locals via the Internet.

"We know that the extremists will keep attempting to separate Xinjiang from China, and we know they will never get what they want," Zhang was quoted as saying.

"Now the battle against terror has extended to the virtual world as the terrorists use the Internet to spread their radical ideas."

Zhang did not give details of the arrests.

China generally carefully scrubs the Internet for any content deemed subversive. Tibetan language sites were shut for a period in March, the anniversary of protests the year before, and popular Internet service Twitter was blocked on Tuesday, ahead of the 20th anniversary of a crackdown on student and worker protestors on June 4, 1989 [ID:nL2105219].

While the Olympic Games were held in Beijing last August, there were at least three attacks against police and paramilitary troops in or near Kashgar, which Chinese authorities attributed to Uighur separatists.

Zhang said that 350 attacks, resulting in 60 deaths of government officials or civilians, had taken place in Kashgar since the 1990s.

Local government statistics show 591 "terrorist organisations and separatist groups" were destroyed between 1990 and 2003, the China Daily said.

Seventeen Uighurs are among the prisoners held in a U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The U.S. is reluctant to send them to China, but has not yet found a third country willing to take them.

The region now known as Xinjiang spans the Silk Road, which has been variously under the control of Chinese dynasties, Afghan kingdoms or local rulers during the last two millennia. It was briefly an independent republic in the 1930s. (Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Alex Richardson)





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