Deadly attack sets China on edge

Official Chinese news outlets blame a shadowy Muslim separatist group for an ambush that killed 16 military police in a far western province

BEIJING -- Two men armed with knives and explosives ambushed a military police unit in China's majority Muslim northwest Monday morning, killing 16 officers and wounding 16 others before being arrested, according to the state media.

The assault, the deadliest terrorist attack in China since the early 1990s, took place 2,100 miles from Beijing but just four days before the start of the Olympics, adding to security concerns in the capital as hundreds of thousands of foreign athletes, journalists and spectators begin to arrive.

China, anxious to avert any possibility of terrorist attack during the games, has girded Beijing with soldiers, missile launchers and sidewalk cameras. The heavy surveillance did not prevent a small protest near Tiananmen Square on Monday by people who had not been compensated after their homes were demolished for a redevelopment project, but a swarm of police officers rapidly broke it up.

Security officials say they remain confident the events will take place without incident.

"We are prepared to deal with any kind of security threat, and we are confident we will have a safe and peaceful Olympic Games," said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Organizing Committee.

The assault took place at dawn in the oasis city of Kashgar, as a brigade of border patrol officers jogged outside their barracks near the city center.

Officials suggested the attackers were associated with a murky separatist movement seeking independence for China's Uighur minority, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who dominate the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Details were reported by Xinhua, the official news agency, and could not be independently verified Monday.

Knives and bombs

According to those accounts, two men driving a dump truck rammed their vehicle into the jogging soldiers, killing or wounding 10. The attackers jumped out of the truck, stabbing the soldiers with knives, and then lobbed homemade bombs at the barracks, although the bombs exploded outside the compound, Xinhua said. Police arrested the attackers, whom they described as Uighurs, 28 and 33 years old, but did not release their names. Xinhua said the arm of one man was badly injured when a bomb detonated in his hand. The police later discovered another 10 bombs in the dump truck, Xinhua said.

Images reportedly taken from local Kashgar television and briefly posted on the Internet showed bodies shrouded in white sheets or on stretchers. The attack received no mention on the evening news in Beijing.

In recent years, China has waged an increasingly aggressive battle against those it describes as radical Muslims. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a group listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and China, is blamed for much of the violence in Xinjiang. The attacks, as recounted by the Chinese government, often involve bombings of police stations, public buses, factories and oil pipelines.

Human rights advocates say the official accounts are often exaggerated to justify wide-ranging crackdowns on Uighur advocates of all stripes. Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group based in Germany, said the Chinese government has been systematically repressing the culture and religion of Xinjiang residents. "These policies are forcing more Uighurs to turn to more militant protest," he said.

Cracking down

Chinese security strategists have cited groups like the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as the greatest threat to the Olympics. At a news conference last week, officials said a crackdown on Uighur separatists this year had led to the arrest of 82 people who they said were plotting to disrupt the Games through acts of terrorism.