China Launches Manhunt for Alleged Member of ETIM Separatist Group: Man Accused of Plotting Urumqi Knife and Bomb Attack
The Wall Street Journal, 18 May 2014
BEIJING—Chinese police have launched an international manhunt for an alleged member of a separatist organization they say plotted a knife and bomb attack at a train station in the northwestern region of Xinjiang last month, official media reported.
Police are accusing the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, for the attack that left three people dead in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, on April 30, the government’s news agency, Xinhua, said on Sunday.
Xinhua quoted local authorities saying the attack was planned outside China by an ETIM member identified as Ismail Yusup and was carried out by 10 of his partners, two of whom were killed in the bomb blast, while the rest were captured.
The report is the first time authorities have identified involvement by separatists. Chinese authorities had previously said only that two religious extremists were responsible for the attack, which occurred just a few hours after China’s president, Xi Jinping, visited a mosque in Urumqi at the end of his first trip to Xinjiang since coming to power.
Xinhua didn’t say how authorities had identified Mr. Yusup nor specify in which country he is believed to be residing. But the report said police were hunting for him in cooperation with the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol.
Interpol didn’t respond to a request for comment and Mr. Yusup’s name didn’t turn up in a search on its website of “red notices,” which are issued for people wanted internationally.
The Urumqi attack was one of a series in major Chinese cities since October that Chinese authorities have blamed on separatists from Xinjiang, suggesting to security experts that the movement is expanding its operations and adopting new tactics, including ones from foreign militant groups.
Xinjiang, which shares a border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic group, some of whose members have been waging a decades long campaign against Chinese rule there. While most attacks have targeted police, government buildings and other symbols of state power, the Urumqi attack and two other recent ones—a mass stabbing at a railway station in southwest China and a car crash and fire off Beijing’s Tiananmen Square—caused terror and casualties among ordinary people.
Many Uighur activists refer to their homeland as East Turkistan and accuse Beijing of restricting religious freedom and flooding the region with non-Uighur migrants who they say get preferential access to jobs, education and public services.
The Chinese government has long accused the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, and its affiliates of perpetrating terrorist attacks in China and having links to foreign terrorist organizations including al Qaeda.
Just over a week ago, a group linked to ETIM called the Turkistan Islamic Party, or TIP, published a video online praising the Urumqi attack and calling for more, although it stopped short of claiming responsibility.
Many Western security officials and experts are skeptical about the cohesiveness and capabilities of ETIM and TIP, and say most Xinjiang-related unrest is caused by disparate and poorly organized groups of local people angered by Chinese policies.
Xinhua said that the main members of the gang behind the Urumqi attack started to preach Islamic extremism in 2005. It said Mr. Yusup fled abroad after becoming wanted by police for making explosives and joined ETIM last year.
On April 22, he ordered 10 partners in Xinjiang to prepare the attack, Xinhua said.
The 10 partners set off explosives and slashed people with knives at the exit of the South Railway Station of Urumqi at around 7:10 p.m. on April 30, Xinhua said.
Two of the attackers, identified as Saderdin Sawut and Memetabudula Ete, were killed by the explosion, and the eight others were caught by police, Xinhua said.
State media had earlier described Mr. Sawut as a 39-year-old man from Aksu prefecture, southwest of Urumqi. Xinhua didn’t provide any more details about him or the other attackers.
China has responded to the recent attacks by stepping up security nationwide, issuing regular police with handguns in many large cities, and carrying out regular patrols by heavily armed counterterrorist forces in politically sensitive areas.
Local authorities in Xinjiang, meanwhile, have launched a security crackdown, detaining and arresting dozens of people suspected of inciting or participating in separatist activities, according to state media.
—Olivia Geng