Uygur bombers pose little threat to venues, analysts say
The Kuqa bombings bore the hallmarks of an act of terrorism by Uygurs seeking attention for their cause while China hosts the Olympics, but the threat of attacks on Games venues was low given the intense security, analysts said.
The incident, described by state media as a group hurling home-made bombs from a car at a police station, was the second in a week and the first since the Games began.
The western region of Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to the Uygurs, a Muslim ethnic group. Some members want a separate state and support violent means to achieve it.
'These two weeks are the weeks they will go for gold because they can get publicity,' said Steve Vickers, chief executive of International Risk, a risk consulting company. The Beijing Olympics started on Friday and will run until August 24.
A week ago two men used similar tactics against a police station in Kashgar, driving a truck into a group of officers and throwing bombs. State media said 16 were killed and 16 injured. Analysts said it may have been the worst act of terrorism in the Xinjiang region since 1949.
However, International Risk rates the threat to Olympics venues at medium to low. 'This is an ugly and gritty, but very localised insurgency. Whether they have the ability to project power to Beijing - I doubt it,' Mr Vickers said.
The crudeness of the weapons used in recent attacks, apparently home-made bombs and knives, raises questions over whether such groups could carry out more sophisticated attacks outside Xinjiang.
There was the possibility of terrorists striking 'soft targets' such as public buses throughout the country during the period, Mr Vickers said.
There were more than 200 terrorist acts in Xinjiang from 1990 to 2001, according to the central government, including bombings, assassinations, arson, poisonings, looting and riots.
Although a security crackdown after the September 11 attacks on the US curtailed such acts, the Games appear to have revived the threat of terrorism. Groups had either reconstituted their ability to strike, or had simply been waiting for an opportunity like the Olympics, analysts said.
Last year Beijing raided a terrorist training camp. It foiled an alleged attempt to blow up a plane in March and earlier this year arrested members of two terrorist groups planning attacks during the Olympics, the government has said.
Scott Harrison, head of Pacific Strategies and Assessments, said the latest incident was 'in keeping with an increased frequency of these kinds of things for the Olympics'.
'The Uygurs and al-Qaeda, or whoever backs them, want to take advantage of this particular time.'
He said he did not believe Beijing was exaggerating the claim of terrorism in regard to the latest incident to increase security. 'I don't think you can say this is being embellished to clamp down, because they already have it in place,' he said.
Beijing attributes many of the terrorist attacks to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which has alleged links to al-Qaeda. Uygur groups are believed to have access to weapons, funding and training from their overseas links.
Before the Olympics, a group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party, which analysts believe to be the same as ETIM, released a video warning of attacks on the Games.
Another analyst said security threats should be taken seriously, but Beijing had a record of combining Uygur groups that used violence with those that used political means.
'We need to be sceptical about Chinese claims, but it doesn't mean we don't take the incidents seriously,' said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch. 'The Chinese government has put a lot of misleading and false information on the table regarding the threat of terrorism.'
