China discovers al Qaeda in its backyard
By Walid Phares
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2008/08/china_discovers_al_qaeda_in_it.php
August 08/08
In a video accusing China’s Communist Government of “mistreating Muslims” a
Jihadi group threatened to attack the Summer Games in Beijin. A spokesman of the
Turkistan Islamic Party accuses China of “forcing Muslims into atheism and
destroying Islamic schools. The “Turkistan Islamic Party” is most likely based
across the border in Pakistan, where sources affirm it received training from Al
Qaeda.
Weeks ago the organization claimed responsibility for a bombings across the
country. The latest video shows graphics of a burning Olympics logo and
explosions. This week, attackers killed 16 police and wounded more than a dozen
in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar using homemade bombs.
But according to AP reports few months ago, Chinese Police broke up a terror
plot targeting the Beijing Olympics while a flight crew foiled attempt to crash
a Chinese plane. Per Communist Party officials in the North Western province of
Xinjiang, materials seized in a January 27 raid in the regional capital, Urumqi,
suggested the plotters' planned "specifically to sabotage the staging of the
Beijing Olympics." Earlier reports said police found guns, homemade bombs,
training materials and "extremist religious ideological materials" during the
January raid in Urumqi, in which two members of the gang were killed and 15
arrested. The immediate question becomes: Is China targeted by a Terror
organization? And since the material found was characterized as “extremist
religious ideological”, does that mean it is al Qaeda or one of its affiliate?
The answer to these questions could change the face of geopolitics in Asia.
Interestingly the Associated Press runs to frame the Terrorists to a local
ethnic conflict in one of China’s Western provinces. AP wrote: “Chinese forces
have for years been battling a low-intensity separatist movement among
Xinjiang's Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim people who are culturally and ethnically
distinct from China's Han majority.” The news agency has tried to set the agenda
of the debate by scoring three points for the “radicals.” They are separatists,
they are representative of a local ethnicity and they are Muslim. In addition
the description of the struggle is informative: Chinese forces versus a Uighur
movement. In a way a parallel to Kosovo, Chechnya and Kashmir with two projected
effects. As framed by AP, the struggle of these “Terrorists” is indeed
legitimate even though the means are violent. But is it the case?
Evidently the Chinese Communists are repressive against all other minorities and
political dissidents. But as in Russia and India’s Wahabi cases, one would
investigate if these particular Terrorists in China are local patriotic elements
with liberal outlook. Not really. As under the Russians in Chechnya it looks
like the Communists in China are battling another form of totalitarianism to
come: Jihadism.
Chinese officials said the group had been trained by and was following the
orders of a radical group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM. The group has been labeled a terrorist
organization by the United Nations and the United States. East Turkestan is
another name for Xinjiang. So the “movement” is indeed Terrorist-identified by
the international community. But other than its violent means, is that group
linked to al Qaeda? There is a double answer to this question. First the group
is indeed Jihadi Wahabi-Salafi as its long term objective is to separate a
particular province from China but only to establish an Emirate, a prelude to
join the world Caliphate. Hence ideologically it is part of the world web of
internationalist Jihadis, who identify with Bin Laden’s school of thought.
Second in many instances, al Qaeda produced material showing Chinese Jihadists
training in their camps. In the chat rooms, the Salafi commentators often cite
the presence of “brothers” from the Xinjiang. And let’s remind ourselves that
upon the fall of Tora Bora in 2001, Chinese officials asked US military to
extradite Chinese nationals who we part of the Taliban and al Qaeda networks in
Afghanistan. So the bottom line is that the Bin Laden cohorts included Jihadis
recruited from inside China’s Western province. As in Chechnya a local ethnic
separatist claim exists but the struggle was hijacked by the Jihadi terror
forces.
Hence as China is discovering al Qaeda in its own backyard, this begs powerful
questions:
1. If these Jihadists will escalate their Terror against Chinese cities and
installations -and the recent discoveries indicate this trend- will Beijing find
itself in the same trench as Washington that is against al Qaeda and the
Salafists?
2. And if that becomes the case, will China continue to pursue a policy of
support to other Jihadist forces, including the Islamist regime in Khartoum?
3. If Communism and Jihadism clash again in the 21st century inside the Asian
superpower, will its resources rich Western province becomes a new Afghanistan
with Jihadists converging from central Asia and other parts f the world?
For now Chinese officials are downplaying the danger altogether and dismissing
the threat: "Those in Xinjiang pursuing separatism and sabotage are an extremely
small number,” said a pro Government Uighur leader. “They may be Uighurs, but
they can't represent Uighurs. They are the scum of the Uighurs," regional
communist official Bekri said. But that is what Russian officials always said
about Chechnya and their Indian counterparts argued about Kashmir. Jihadism has
demonstrated that its adherents can swiftly recruit and expand, especially if
international Wahabis are generous and committed. Hence the answer to this
critical new “Jihad” will come from as far as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia but also
from the smaller principality of Qatar, where al Jazeera can transform a local
separatist movement into an uprising in the name of the Umma.
***********
Dr Walid Phares is the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a visiting scholar at the European
Foundation for Democracy. He is the author of The Confrontation: Winning the War
against Future Jihad
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