China destroys Islamist camp, killing 18
BEIJING, Jan 8 (AFP) Jan 08, 2007
http://www.sinodaily.com/2006/070108....mv6w6kdf.html
China has destroyed an Islamist camp, killing 18 suspected terrorists and capturing 17 others in a region with large separatist ethnic and religious minorities, state media said Monday.
One police officer was killed and another was injured during a gun battle with the suspects on Friday in the mountains of northwest Xinjiang region, a police spokeswoman told the official Xinhua news agency.
Ba Yan said the training camp was run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group the United Nations classed as a terrorist organisation in 2002.
Police seized 22 hand grenades and more than 1,500 others that were still being made, as well as guns and other home-made explosives, Ba said.
The Uighurs, an overwhelmingly Muslim, Turkic-speaking people and the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, are waging a virtually open rebellion against Chinese rule.
Some of the more extremist elements are fighting for an independent state, and Beijing accuses several of the region's anti-China groups of having links with Al Qaeda.
But some rights groups say Beijing has been using the fight against Islamist terrorism since the September 11 attacks as a pretext to crack down on independence supporters.
All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse.
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