'Al Qaeda-in-China'? Series of deadly explosions outside Communist party office in central China

Jonathan Kaiman
The Guardian
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 09:38 UTC

At least one person was killed and eight injured in a series of explosions outside a provincial Communist party office in central China on Wednesday morning.

The blasts occurred at 7.40am outside of the Shanxi Communist party committee offices in Taiyuan city, the provincial capital of Shanxi, according to China's official newswire Xinhua.

"Judging by steel ball bearings scattered throughout the scene, [police] suspect an improvised explosive device," Xinhua reported. "Right now the police have blocked off the scene and the incident is under investigation."

The state broadcaster CCTV attributed the blasts to seven bombs hidden in roadside flower displays. More than 20 vehicles were damaged, CCTV reported. The motive for the attack was unclear.

"About 7.40 in the morning I heard some explosions," said a witness surnamed Gao, who lives in a dormitory close to the party offices. "At first I'd thought they were only firecrackers or something until I heard a police whistle. I realised something was wrong and immediately went downstairs to the scene.

"I saw blood stains on the ground, and an old lady whose head was injured by flying debris - she was being rescued and sent to the hospital. I also saw that the car windows in a nearby parking lot were shattered."

An elderly man described the scene in a video posted online. "I saw an iron ball flying from 300 to 400 metres away and hit an old lady on the head," he said. "Look, look at the blood stain on the ground. I saw seven blasts and three of them were continuous. The iron ball was as big as a walnut. The old lady was accompanying her grandson to school and got hit. Luckily the kid was fine."

Pictures posted online showed a column of smoke rising in front of the building near a congested thoroughfare; others showed one person sprawled in the middle of the road, which was lined with fire engines.

China has been on high alert for violent attacks since last week, when a sports utility vehicle ploughed through pedestrians in Tiananmen Square, crashed into a marble bridge and exploded, killing five people and injuring 40. Authorities labelled that incident a terrorist attack and blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a shadowy group based in Xinjiang, a north-western region of China.

In a handful of recent incidents, disgruntled Chinese citizens have taken violent measures to avenge perceived mistreatment by authorities. In July a wheelchair-bound man set off an explosive device at the Beijing Capital international airport to protest against official treatment of a decade-old case of police brutality.

In 2011 an unemployed farmer in Fuzhou, a city in eastern Jiangxi province, blew himself up near government buildings to protest at the confiscation of his land to build a highway. Three people were killed including the farmer, and seven more were injured.

Comment: Here's something from the Council on Foreign Relations, an unabashed propaganda outlet for the West's 'democratization' of the planet, but nevertheless with some useful background to the 'War on Terror' being set up in China too:

Does the ETIM have ties to al-Qaeda?

U.S. and Chinese officials say it does, but some experts are less sure. The State Department reports that the ETIM has received "training and funding" from Osama bin Laden's terror network and that ETIM militants fought in the ranks of al-Qaeda against the United States in the Operation Enduring Freedom. U.S. officials are said to have gathered information about Uighur militants linked to al-Qaeda from twenty-two Uighurs captured in Afghanistan and detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Five of the detainees were released in 2006 and were accepted by Albania instead of repatriating to China.

In January 2002, a Chinese government study reported that the ETIM has received money, weapons, and support from al-Qaeda. According to the report, some ETIM militants were trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan , crossed back into Xinjiang, and set up terrorist cells there. But while experts agree hundreds of Uighurs left China to join al-Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, some China specialists doubt the ETIM currently has significant ties to bin Laden's network. Beijing has a long history of falsifying data, they say, and since September 11 the Chinese have repeatedly tried to paint their own campaign against Uighur separatists in Xinjiang as a flank of the U.S.-led war on terrorism - and to get Washington to drop its long-standing protests over Chinese human rights abuses in its crackdowns in Xinjiang. ETIM leader Hahsan Mahsum was killed in raids on camps linked to al-Qaeda in 2003.