Police Killed in New Uyghuristan Clash
2008-08-28
Unarmed Uyghur police come under attack while searching for suspects in an August clash.

KASHGAR, Uyghuristan, China: A Chinese policeman (R) watches as ethnic Uyghurs line the street for an official ceremony on August 7, 2008.

HONG KONG—Two ethnic Uyghur police officers have been killed and at least two critically injured in a new clash near the Silk Road city of Kashgar, according to authoritative sources and witnesses.

The two dead and wounded officers all belong to the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, according to police and the chief nurse at Peyzawat [in Chinese, Jiashi] county hospital. “All of them were stabbed,” the nurse said.

“Two of them died at the hospital today [Wednesday] and two of them have been sent to the Kashgar Prefecture Hospital because they were in critical condition.”

The nurse, who asked not to be named, said they were brought to the hospital after a clash in Qizilboy village, Peyzawat county.

“Six or seven people came out and attacked them with knives,” an officer who witnessed the attack said. “Two officers died at the scene—one was the [Misha] village police chief. Four others were wounded, and four of us escaped.”

A Peyzawat county government official, contacted by telephone, confirmed that all the victims had been hospitalized with knife wounds. “They all work for the government,” he said.

The Peyzawat county Public Security Bureau declined to comment in detail. “We have not received instructions as to what to say. You should call the command center. We are waiting to receive the specifics from them,” an officer on duty said.

Searching for suspect

The deputy Peyzawat county police chief, Omerjan, said in an interview that the police officers—all members of the Uyghur Muslim minority—were searching a cornfield following a tip that a woman suspected of aiding assailants in an earlier attack was hiding there.

“We didn’t expect to come under attack in that cornfield,” Omerjan said. “They [the police] didn’t carry any weapons. Now there are 500 armed Chinese troops searching house to house in the area. It has been almost nine hours, but we still haven’t found anyone.”

In August, assailants attacked a checkpoint in Yamanya town, in Yengisher [in Chinese, Shule] county, in which three guards were killed. Following the Yamanya attack, police arrested a Uyghur woman, Amangul, 50. On Wednesday, they were searching for her daughter, indentified as Anargul, 22, according to Omerjan, on suspicion that she aided the Yamanya assailants.

Seven people are sought in connection with the Yamanya attack. Police have identified five of those suspects as Abdurehim Ehet, Keyim Bawudun, Imam Hesen, Hesen Hoshur, and Abdusalam Sultan. Names of the remaining two were unavailable.

“After the Yamanya incident, we organized large public gatherings and asked people to help us find the suspects. We also said we would offer a 50,000-yuan reward to anyone who helped. But still nobody has come forward,” Omerjan said.

All of the officers were unarmed, the deputy police chief and the officer who took part in the search said. The officer added that Uyghur police are generally barred from carrying weapons.

Twenty of the 21 police working in the local police station are Uyghurs and one is Han Chinese, he said. The station owns only two firearms, both of which are locked in storage.

Officers recovering

On Friday, the new Misha village police chief, Mamet Ali, said the wounded officers were recovering in hospital but one had lost two fingers in the attack.

Anargul remained at large, Ali said, adding: “We have her eight-year-old son in custody. We also have Amangul [her mother] in custody… Anargul is a key person for us to arrest the others. That is why we have her son.”

Police have also detained two sons of cleric and community leader Abdul Shukur, Ali said. Shukur’s home is close to the cornfield where the clash erupted this week, and Shukur was already in custody at the time. His sons’ ages weren’t immediately available.

Another local official, the Misha village propaganda chief, said search operations were under way throughout Peyzawat, Yengisher, and Yupurgha [in Chinese, Yuepuhu] counties. “All the police and troops, government employees, and farmers are mobilized in the area under the leadership of the Kashgar governor, Akber Ghopur,” the propaganda chief said.

“In Misha village alone, about 2,000 people including 500 troops, 300 armed police, and 400 government employees and paramilitary” have been mobilized, he said, although no one has yet been detained.

Stepped-up campaign

Exiled Uyghurs meanwhile say authorities in the troubled Xinjiang region have stepped up a campaign to quell separatism among Uyghurs there, making numerous arrests and setting up checkpoints following the worst outbreak of violence there in a decade.

The Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, citing communications from the town of Kucha in Xinjiang, said residents there have been barred from travelling outside their own county, with a half-dozen military checkpoints set up to prevent travel.

Kucha was the site of an Aug. 10 attack in which 15 ethnic Uyghurs staged attacks on prominent government buildings, killing a security guard and a civilian. Eight of the attackers were killed and two committed suicide.

Six days earlier, according to China’s official media, 16 police officers died when a group of Uyghurs attacked them with knives and homemade explosives.

No group has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombings and stabbings in August, but police have blamed Uyghur “terrorists.”

The World Uyghur Congress also said hundreds of Uyghurs have been detained in connection with the attacks. No official comment was immediately available.

Original reporting by Shohret and Gulchira for RFA’s Uyghur service. Additional reporting by Ding Xiao for RFA’s Mandarin service.Translated by Omer Kanat. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

From:http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/stabbing-08282008123309.html

The Relation of the Hui Muslims with the Tibetans and Uighurs, 1996
Alexander Berzin
November 1996

The Uighurs
The two major Islamic minorities in the People's Republic of China are the Uighurs and the Hui. Both follow the Sunna form of Islam, mixed with several schools of Central Asian Sufism. The Uighurs are a Turkic people who came originally from the Altai Mountain region north of western Mongolia. After ruling Mongolia from the early eighth to the mid-ninth centuries CE, they migrated to East Turkistan (Chin.: Xinjiang). They have been the predominant ethnic group of the region ever since and speak their own Turkic language. The Uighurs, however, are not a unified people. As in the past, they identify primarily with their oasis cities. The term "Uighur" to refer to all of them has, in fact, only been used since the late nineteenth century to unify their resistance against the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

As a whole, the Uighurs are a relaxed gentle people who, like the Tibetans, do not have a Protestant work ethic. They do not see work as a virtue in itself and also value enjoying life. Their level of knowledge and practice of Islam is fairly low, and the style of their mosques and customs are Central Asian. Those in the central and northern parts of Xinjiang have now become strongly Sinified. Mostly only the old people go to the mosques, which are not kept in good condition. Islam is stronger among the Uighurs in southern Xinjiang where there has been a relatively small Han presence. It is practiced there in a more traditional form than among the Hui.

The Hui
The Hui are from divers ethnic origins, primarily Arab, Persian, Central Asian, and Mongol, and live throughout China. They came originally as merchants and conscripted soldiers, starting in the mid-seventh century. In the mid-fourteenth century, they were forced to intermarry with Han Chinese. Consequently, they speak Chinese and their customs and mosques are all Chinese style. The other Muslim minorities of China have traditionally been highly critical of the Hui's adaptation of Islamic practices to Han ways of life.

In general, the Hui lack the Middle Eastern/Central Asian relaxed attitude towards life and share the Chinese aggressive ambition for trade and money. Like the Tibetans, many carry knives and are fast to use them. They divide into two major groups. The Western Hui live in Ningxia, southern Gansu, and eastern Qinghai, bordering Amdo (northeastern Tibet); while the Eastern Hui are spread throughout northern China and eastern Inner Mongolia.

The Western Hui
Among the Western Hui, Islam is relatively strong as a unifying force and continues to grow. Both young and old go to the mosques, which function as a social meeting-place for exchanging information. These mosques are much wealthier and kept much cleaner than their Uighur counterparts. Despite the presence of Islamic schools in the Hui cultural capital, Lingxia, teaching mostly the traditional Sufi sects, with even some meditation masters, the vast majority of Western Hui know hardly anything deep about Islam.

The Western Hui seem to succumb less to the present pressures of Sinification than the Uighurs, perhaps because they are already so Sinified and speak exclusively Chinese. For example, only those Uighur women who live in remote villages in southern Xinjiang wear scarves on their heads, whereas Western Hui women wear them even in Han Chinese dominated cities.

The Eastern Hui
The Eastern Hui are less traditional than the Western Hui. Although approximately eighty per cent, both young and old, are believers in Islam, few come to prayers. The Eastern Hui still slaughter their animals according to the "halal" procedures and do not eat pork. Many, however, smoke and drink alcohol, which is against the Quran. Some observe the Ramadan fast, but very few of the men are circumcised and the women do not wear headscarves.

Privileged Position of the Hui
The Hui have enjoyed more privileges in the People's Republic of China than other non-Han minorities, primarily because they have been diplomatic and cooperated greatly. Take the example of Ma Pufung, the powerful Hui warlord of Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia in the late 1930s and 40s with whom the Tibetans had to negotiate in order to bring the baby Fourteenth Dalai Lama from his birthplace there to Lhasa. In the late 1940s, he allied with the communist Han Chinese forces and unified the regions under his control with theirs. Some Hui are still bitter over this, since he favored the division of the Hui among themselves and unification with the Han over unity of the Hui. Consequently, there are still many regional divisions among the Hui, with local mafia allegiances as during the warlord era. Because of this cooperation and the diplomatic espousal of both Maoism and Islam, plus pressure on China from Middle Eastern countries for respect of Islam in exchange for trade privileges, there has been a large proliferation of new mosques. These have been built primarily by the Hui, not the Uighurs.

Hui Migration
For centuries, the Hui have been spreading out and settling throughout China, primarily as merchants. Even during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, Muslims accompanied the Mongol tribute missions to Beijing in order to conduct trade. The Uighurs and Tibetan Muslims, by contrast, have remained isolated in their homelands. This difference is perhaps due to the Hui being descended from merchants and mercenary soldiers, whereas both the Uighur and Tibetan Muslims came to their present locations as refugees driven out of their homelands in Mongolia and Kashmir respectively. Thus, the present migration of Muslim merchants to Central Tibet is nothing new in Hui history. They are not being forcefully relocated to Tibet by the Han Chinese authorities, but are moving on their own initiative for a business motive.

Western Hui have been moving not only into Tibet, but also all over Gansu and Xinjiang as the pioneers for Han Chinese settlement. They open restaurants and shops along all the roads, and as soon as there are a small number of them in any locality, they build a mosque - usually as a social gathering place to keep their communities together, rather than because of religious zeal. Not only do the Tibetans resent the Hui immigration; but so do the Uighurs. Although the Han Chinese army and bureaucracy have moved in first, Han traders and businessmen, lacking the pioneering spirit of the Hui, have only followed in their footsteps.

Contrast between the Tibetan and Hui Mentalities
Many Tibetans still have a nomadic mentality, with a fierce desire for independence, especially freedom of movement. In general, they dislike routine work. Even if they have shops, many will run them only seasonally, frequently closing them for long holidays, pilgrimages, picnics, and so on. Even in India, many Tibetans seasonally migrate to the Indian cities to sell sweaters, go on pilgrimage, attend Buddhist discourses, and only work part of the year. By contrast, the Hui, as well as the Han, are interested only in money and business, and they stay put in their shops and street stalls from 6 AM to 10 PM year-round without moving.

The Hui, being very ingenious as well as industrious, have taken over the manufacture and sale of traditional Tibetan goods, and the Tibetans cannot, and do not even seem to want to compete. The Hui are making Tibetan-style jewelry, rosaries, and other religious paraphernalia, equipment for horses, knives, wool, carpets, musical instruments, shoes and noodles, as well as running the ubiquitous restaurants. The Han merchants come only later and sell mostly modern Chinese manufactured goods like toothbrushes and cheap Chinese clothing.

Tibetan and Uighur Autonomy Movements
The Tibetans and Uighurs see the Hui immigrants, more than the Han, as a greater threat to their cultures. As the Hui and Uighurs share Islam in common, it is evident that the tension does not arise from religious grounds, but from economic competition. The Han Chinese seem to encourage this tension, so as to use it to justify their military occupation to keep the peace and prevent another Bosnia.

Thus, the Tibetan and Uighur movements for true autonomy or even independence have nothing to do with Buddhist or Islamic fundamentalism. They arise from the shared wish to preserve their cultures, religions, and languages from being overwhelmed and marginalized by the policies of the People's Republic of China and by the waves of Han and Hui settlers. The Hui, on the other hand, do not hold similar aspirations, as they share so much in common with the Han Chinese and have never had an independent state.

Make the Dharma available to all.
Please help us with this!
This Website relies completely on your donations. If you found this article useful and think it would be beneficial for others, please consider giving a donation to help make more material available free of charge.

Thank you very much!


Back ^Top of Page Home
Page Contents
The Uighurs
The Hui
The Western Hui
The Eastern Hui
Privileged Position of the Hui
Hui Migration
Contrast between the Tibetan and Hui Mentalities
Tibetan and Uighur Autonomy Movements
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/e-books/unpublished_manuscripts/historical_interaction/pt2/history_cultures_12.html
From:

The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire
Alexander Berzin, 1996

lightly revised, January 2003, December 2006
Part I: The Umayyad Caliphate (661 - 750 CE)
6 Further Umayyad Expansion in West Turkistan
The remainder of the Umayyad period over the ensuing years of the first half of the eighth century saw a bewildering frequent change of alliances as even more powers entered the fray for control of West Turkistan and the Silk Route. Through a review of the main events, it will become obvious that the Umayyad Arabs were not fanatic religious extremists campaigning to spread Islam to a sea of infidels, but merely one of many ambitious peoples fighting for political and economic gain. All the powers, including the Umayyads, made and broke alliances continually, not based on religion, but on pragmatic, military grounds.

The Shifting of Alliances and Control of Territories
By the middle of Umar II’s reign (r. 717 - 724), the Umayyads controlled Bactria and the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Ferghana in Sogdia. The Tibetans were their allies. The Turgish Turks held the rest of Sogdia, particularly Tashkent, as well as Kashgar and Kucha in the western Tarim Basin. The Tang Chinese forces were in Turfan at the eastern end of the Tarim Basin and in Beshbaliq across the Tianshan Mountains to Turfan’s north. The Eastern Turks held the rest of West Turkistan north of Sogdia, including Suyab, while the Tibetans maintained a presence along the southern Tarim route. A Tang sympathizer, however, was on the throne of Khotan. The Turki Shahis were confined to Gandhara. Except for the Umayyad Arabs, all the other power brokers in Central Asia were supporters of Buddhism to varying degrees. This seems, however, to have had no influence on the events that followed.

[ View Map Ten: Central Asia, Approximately 720 CE.]

Taking advantage of the death of the Umayyad General Qutaiba, the Tang forces were the first to move. Setting out from their stronghold in Turfan and crossing East Turkistan north of the Tianshan Mountains, they took Kucha and Kashgar from the Turgish, attacking from the rear. Crossing the farwestern flank of the Tianshan into West Turkistan, they then captured Suyab from the Eastern Turks, Ferghana from the Umayyads, and Tashkent also from the Turgish.

At this point, the Turgish reorganized themselves under a different leader and a new group of Turks emerged on the scene, the Qarluqs (Kharlukh, Tib. Gar-log) in Dzungaria, who were also patrons of Buddhism. The Qarluqs replaced the Eastern Turks in the territory of northern West Turkistan beyond Tang-held Suyab and allied themselves with the Han Chinese. The Turgish, in turn, joined the Arab-Tibetan alliance. The Turgish then recaptured their homeland of Suyab and the Umayyads, in turn, took back Ferghana. Tashkent became temporarily independent. The Tang forces were left holding only Kashgar and Kucha.

[ View Map Eleven: Central Asia, Approximately 725 CE.]

The Reassertion of Umayyad Rule in Sindh
In 724, the new Umayyad caliph, Hashim (r. 724 - 743), sent General Junaid south to reassert control over Sindh. The Arab-led forces succeeded in Sindh, but failed in their attempt to take Gujarat and West Punjab. As Governor of Sindh, General Junaid continued the previous Umayyad policy of exacting both a poll tax on the Hindus and Buddhists as well as a tax on pilgrims to the holy sites of both these religions.

Although the Hindu Pratihara rulers in West Punjab had the strength to drive the Umayyad forces from Sindh, they refrained from such action. The Muslims had threatened to destroy the major Hindu shrines and images if the Pratiharas attacked, and the latter considered the preservation of their holy places more important than regaining control over traditional territory. This is further indication that the Umayyad Arabs regarded the destruction of non-Muslim religious sites as primarily acts of power politics.

Umayyad Loss and Regaining of Sogdia
Meanwhile, with their confidence boosted by the return of their homeland in Suyab, the Turgish ended their short-term alliance with the Umayyads. Taking advantage of the deployment in Sindh of the major part of the Arab forces, the Turgish turned on the Umayyads, expelling them from Ferghana and nearby areas in Sogdia. The Tibetans followed the Turgish lead and also switched sides. The new Turgish-Tibetan alliance then turned on the Umayyads and, by 729, drove them from most of the rest of Sogdia and Bactria. The Arabs were left holding only Samarkand.

The Umayyads then allied themselves temporarily with Tang China to counter the powerful Turgish-Tibetan alliance. They defeated the Turgish at Suyab in 736. With the death of their king two years later, the Turgish tribes broke up and became very weak. The Han Chinese kept Suyab and continued their wars against the Tibetans, while the Umayyads moved back into Bactria and the rest of Sogdia. This prompted the Tibetans to reactivate their traditional alliance with the Turki Shahis by a visit of the Tibetan emperor to Kabul in 739 to celebrate a marriage alliance between Kabul and Khotan.

The Tang court now began a policy of supporting dissidents in the Umayyad-held cities of Sogdia. At one point, they even swept down from Suyab and pillaged Tashkent, which previously they had briefly held. Sino-Arab relations became strained. The conflict, however, was not based on religious grounds, but was purely politically motivated. Let us examine it more closely.

[ View Map Twelve: Central Asia, Approximately 740 CE.]

Analysis of the Tang Attacks on Umayyad-Held Sogdia
By exploring some of the policies of Xuanzong, the Tang Chinese emperor at this time, we can understand even more clearly that the late Umayyads were not aggressively seeking converts to Islam and that the Tang Emperor’s support of anti-Umayyad dissidents in Sogdia was not due to a Buddhist antipathy toward Islam.

Two events set the stage for the Emperor’s policies. Firstly, when Xuanzong’s grandmother, Empress Wu, had overthrown the Tang Dynasty by appealing to Buddhist millenarianism, she had exempted all Buddhist monks from taxes in order to win their support. Secondly, soon after the Emperor had ascended the throne, many Sogdians who had settled in Mongolia flocked to Han China. The Emperor’s responses to these two developments eventually led to his actions in Sogdia.

The Invitation of Sogdians to Mongolia and Their Subsequent Eviction
Although there had been Sogdian merchants along the Silk Route and in Han China for centuries before, a large influx of Sogdian immigrants came to the area in the mid-sixth century. Their influx was due to the religious suppressions of the Iranian Sassanid emperor, Xusrau I (r. 531 - 578). During the First Eastern Turk Empire (553 - 630), these Sogdians held a favored position with the Eastern Turks. Many were invited to Mongolia from their community in Turfan and were instrumental in translating Buddhist texts into the Old Turk language. The government used the Sogdian language and script for its financial business. During the course of the Second Eastern Turk Period (682 - 744), however, the powerful minister, Tonyuquq, steered its rulers on an anti-Buddhist course.

Tonyuquq blamed the Tang defeat of the First Eastern Turk Dynasty on the negative influence of Buddhism on the Turks. Buddhism taught gentleness and nonviolence, which robbed the Turks of their martial spirit. He called for a return to the traditional pan-Turkic cult of the nomadic warrior, wishing to use its strong ethos to unite all Turkic tribes behind him and fight the Han Chinese.

The Eastern Turks were the holders of Otukan (Turk. Ötukän), the Mongolian mountain sacred to all Turks according to their pre-Buddhist Tengrian and shamanist religions. Tonyuquq argued that the rulers he served were therefore morally obliged to uphold Turkic culture and values. Associating the Sogdians with Buddhism and the Han Chinese, he influenced Qapaghan Qaghan (r. 692 - 716) to drop the use of Sogdian and, for administrative purposes, employ instead the Old Turk language written in a Runic-style script. As the Sogdian population of Mongolia became increasingly unwelcome, they emigrated en masse to northern China in 713, settling particularly in Chang’an (Ch’ang-an) and Loyang (Lo-yang), the terminus cities of the Silk Route.

[ View Map Thirteen: Sogdian Migrations.]

The Manichaean Factor
The Sogdian community in Mongolia had not been exclusively Buddhist. The majority, in fact, followed Manichaeism. This Iranian religion, founded in Babylon by Mani (217 – 276 CE), was an eclectic faith that adopted many features of the local beliefs that it encountered as it spread. It had two major forms -- a western one in Asia Minor that accorded with Zoroastrianism and Christianity, and a later eastern one along the Silk Route that adopted strong Buddhist elements. Syriac and then Parthian were the official languages of the former, while Sogdian played a similar role for the latter.

Manichaeism had a strong missionary movement and the Sogdian followers of its eastern form, once in Han China, claimed it to be a form of Buddhism in order to win converts. They introduced it in this fashion to Empress Wu at the Chinese imperial court in 694 and, after their emigration from Mongolia, reintroduced it to the court in 719. This was after the Buddhist millenarian usurpation by the Empress had been overthrown and Tang rule restabilized. In 736, however, Emperor Xuanzong passed a decree forbidding Han Chinese from following Manichaeism and restricting the religion to non-Han subjects and foreigners. The reason given was that Manichaeism was a shallow imitation of Buddhism and was being spread as an imposter faith on the basis of a lie.

The Tang Emperor, however, was not sympathetic to Buddhism, and this criticism was not because of his wish to uphold the pure Buddhist teachings by cleansing it of heresy. There were many Han Chinese who were dissatisfied with the Emperor’s ambitious Central Asian campaigns because of the consequently high demand on them for taxes and military service. Xuanzong would have undoubtedly wished to avoid having a foreign, quasi-Buddhist religion available for Han Chinese that could act as a rallying point for focusing their dissent and possible rebellion.

The Emperor’s grandmother had deposed the Tang line by appealing to the cult of Maitreya Buddha. Since in Sogdian texts, Mani was frequently identified with Maitreya, and his grandmother had been favorably disposed toward Manichaeism, fears of a similar millenarian rebellion directed at him undoubtedly prompted the Emperor’s move against the Iranian religion.

Of the three religions of the Sogdian merchants in Han China -- Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and Buddhism -- the first was by far the most aggressively oriented toward gaining converts. Several decades earlier, Arab and Iranian Muslim merchants had also started traveling to Han China. They came primarily by sea, not overland via the Silk Route, and settled in the coastal cities of southeastern China. A Muslim teacher, Sa’ad bin Ali wa Qas (d. 681), had even come with them. Yet, Xuanzong never issued a similar edict banning Han Chinese from following Islam. In fact, no subsequent Chinese emperor, Buddhist or otherwise, ever did either. They always followed a policy of religious tolerance toward Islam. This indicates that even if the first Muslims in Han China were involved in trying to spread their religion, this was not a major effort and never seen as a threat.

The Expulsion of Non-Han Buddhist Monastics from Tang China
As the years passed, the Tang Government became increasingly in need of funds to finance the Emperor’s ever more extensive campaigns in Central Asia. The tax-exempt status of the Buddhist monasteries from the time of Empress Wu’s usurpation seriously limited government income. Therefore, in 740, Xuanzong turned his support even more strongly toward Taoism, reimposed taxes on the Buddhist monasteries, and severely restricted the number of Han Chinese monks and nuns in his realm. He also expelled all non-Han Buddhist monastics as an unnecessary financial drain on the public.

Xuanzong’s support of anti-Umayyad dissidents in Sogdia, then, was clearly politically and economically motivated and had nothing to do with Islamic-Buddhist relations. The Emperor was not even a Buddhist and his deportation of Sogdian monks from Han China was certainly not a move to send them back to Sogdia to strengthen an anti-Islamic movement among Sogdian Buddhists. He expelled monks of other non-Han nationalities as well, not only Sogdians. Tang China was solely interested in gaining more territory in Central Asia at the expense of the Umayyads and controlling more of the lucrative Silk Route trade.

Final Events of the Umayyad Period
The last major event of the Umayyad period significant for future relations between Islam and Buddhism in Central Asia occurred in 744. The Uighur (Uyghur) Turks lived originally in the mountains of northwestern Mongolia, with some of their tribes wandering as far as the Tocharian-ruled Turfan region to the south and the Lake Baikal area of Siberia to the northeast. They were traditional allies of the Han Chinese against the Eastern Turks who controlled the Mongolian areas sandwiched between them.

[ View Map Fourteen: Turkic Tribes, End of the Umayyad Period.]

In 605, as the first Han Chinese move into the Tarim Basin in more than four centuries, the Sui Chinese emperor, Wendi (Wen-ti), had helped the Uighurs conquer Turfan, the center of Old Turk Buddhism. The Uighurs quickly adopted the Buddhist faith, especially in light of Wendi having declaring himself a Buddhist universal emperor. In 629, one of the first Uighur princes took the Buddhist name “Bodhisattva,” a title also used by Eastern Turk religious rulers. In the 630s, Tang China took Turfan from the Uighurs, but the latter still helped the Han Chinese put an end to the First Eastern Turk Dynasty shortly thereafter.

A half century later, the Second Eastern Turk Dynasty conquered the Uighur homeland with its aggressively pan-Turkic military policy. However, in 716, shortly after the Sogdians had fled Mongolia, the Uighurs won their independence. Subsequently, they continued to help their Han Chinese allies harass the Eastern Turks. Now, in 744, with the help of the Qarluqs in Dzungaria and northern West Turkistan, the Uighurs attacked and defeated the Eastern Turks and established their own Orkhon Empire in Mongolia.

The Oghuz tribe of Eastern Turks, known as the Turks of White Dress, migrated at this point from modern-day Inner Mongolia to the northeastern corner of Sogdia, near Ferghana. They soon played an important role in the complicated developments in Sogdia at the beginning of the Abbasid period. Furthermore, once in power, the Uighurs frequently fought with their vassals, the Qarluqs. The Uighurs and Qarluqs now inherited the roles of rival leaders of the eastern and western branches of the Turkic tribes. The Uighurs were in the ascendency, however, since they controlled Otukan, the Turks’ sacred mountain in central Mongolia near the Orkhon capital, Ordubaliq. The rivalry of these two Turkic people also set the stage for future developments.

Thus, the Umayyad era ended in 750 with the Arabs having lost and regained Bactria and Sogdia yet again. Their hold on the region was still precarious and their relations with the Buddhists, both among their subjects and their everchanging allies and enemies, was still mostly based on political, military, and economic expediencies as before.

Previous Chapter 5 Book Contents Next Chapter 7
Make the Dharma available to all.
Please help us with this!
This Website relies completely on your donations. If you found this article useful and think it would be beneficial for others, please consider giving a donation to help make more material available free of charge.

Thank you very much!


Back ^Top of Page Home
Page Contents
The Shifting of Alliances and Control of Territories
The Reassertion of Umayyad Rule in Sindh
Umayyad Loss and Regaining of Sogdia
Analysis of the Tang Attacks on Umayyad-Held Sogdia
The Invitation of Sogdians to Mongolia and Their Subsequent Eviction
The Manichaean Factor
The Expulsion of Non-Han Buddhist Monastics from Tang China
Final Events of the Umayyad Period

From:http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/e-books/unpublished_manuscripts/historical_interaction/pt2/history_cultures_12.html

The Historical Interaction between the Buddhist and Islamic Cultures before the Mongol Empire

Alexander Berzin, 1996

lightly revised, January 2003, December 2006

Part II: The Early Abbasid Period (750 - Mid-Ninth Century CE)

12 The Establishment of Buddhist Kingdoms by the Uighurs

The Kyrghyz Conquest of Mongolia
The Kyrgyz (Kirghiz) were originally a Mongolian people from the mountain forests of the present-day Altai and Tuva districts of southern Siberia north of Dzungaria. Some of their tribes also lived in the western reaches of the Tianshan Range to Dzungaria’s south. The Eastern Turk Empire had included the tradi­tional Kyrgyz Altai lands and, when the Uighurs took over that empire, the Uighurs conquered and devastated them in 758. Thereafter, the Kyrgyz and Uighurs remained ever enemies. Many Kyrgyz shifted to the western Tianshan area, where they allied themselves with the Qarluqs, Tibetans, and Abbasids against the Uighurs and Tang China.

Since the second half of the eighth century, Tibetan-Arab trade had passed from western Tibet through the Wakhan Corridor to western Bactria and on to Sogdia. A second route, however, passed from northeastern Tibet, through the Tibetan holdings in the Gansu Corridor, to the crucial areas of Turfan and Beshbaliq, disputed by the Tibetans, Uighurs and Tang China until settled in favor of the Tibetans in 821. It then continued across southern Dzungaria, over the western spur of the Tianshan Mountains to northern West Turkistan, all of which was held by the Qarluqs until the 790s and then the Uighurs, and finally on to Arab-held Sogdia. Uighur bandits constantly plagued the portion of the route that passed through the Tianshan Mountains. The Kyrgyz played an important role in fighting these bandits and keeping the trade route open and safe.



The Tibetan merchants on this route were Buddhists, as evidenced by the Buddhist mantras (sacred syllables) they carved in Tibetan script on rocks found near Lake Issyk Kul in modern-day eastern Kyrgyzstan. They were not subject to religious persecution or restrictions in the Muslim lands at the western terminus of the Central Asian Silk Route, otherwise they would not have risked the journey. This is another indication that the 815 jihad by Caliph al-Mamun against the Tibetan-Turki Shahi-Qarluq-Oghuz alliance was directed at political objectives, not at a mass, forced conversion of people viewed as infidels.

After the peace treaties with the Tibetans and Tang China in 821, the Uighurs gradually became weakened by internal discord and the difficulties imposed by the Tibetan wedge dividing their territories in Mongolia and Dzungaria. In 840, after a particularly severe winter of heavy snowfall had decimated the Uighur herds, the Kyrgyz overthrew the Orkhon Empire in Mongolia, Dzungaria, and the eastern portion of northern West Turkistan. ­The Kyrgyz then ruled the area from their base in the Altai Mountains until they themselves were displaced by the Khi­tans (Kitan) in 924.

The Uighur Migration into Turkistan and the Gansu Corridor
With the Kyrgyz takeover of their empire, the majority of the Orkhon Uighurs migrated southward. Most went to Turfan (Qocho), Beshbaliq, and Kucha. These city-states along or adjacent to the northern rim of the Tarim Basin with Tocharian culture and large Sogdian and Han Chinese minorities were their natural destination.

The Uighurs had maintained a small presence in Turfan since at least the fourth century CE and had ruled it briefly between 605 and the 630s. They had controlled both it and Beshbaliq periodically between the 790s and 821. They now had a peace treaty with the Tibetans who were currently ruling the two city-states. Furthermore, they had a presence in Kucha since the 790s after having taken it from Tang China.

Kucha was also disputed by the Qarluqs from Kashgar and the Tibetans from Turfan, and it is unclear who was actually governing it at this time. However, even if it had been the Qarluqs, the latter were still the nominal vassals of the Uighurs, despite their almost incessant battles against them over the last century. The Uighurs would neither have been evicted by the Qarluqs nor denied further entry. Thus, with long familiarity with the sedentary urban culture of these oasis states, it was not difficult for the Uighur refugees to move there and make the transition from nomadic steppe life.

There were three other smaller bands of Orkhon Uighurs who did not settle in these northern Tarim city-states. The largest of the three migrated to the city-states of the Gansu Corridor, ruled by the Tibetans, and later became known as the Yellow Yugurs. Of the other two, one migrated to the west from the Uighur-held eastern portion of northern West Turkistan and settled among the Qarluqs in the Chu River Valley in northern Kyrgyzstan. Another settled among the Qarluqs in Kashgar. A minor group went east to Manchuria, quickly assimilated and does not appear mentioned in histories again

.

[ View Map Twenty: Dispersion of the Orkhon Uighurs from Mongolia and Dzungaria.]

All four groups of Uighurs adopted Buddhism after migration. Those on the northern rim of the Tarim Basin adopted the Tocharian/Sogdian/Han Chinese form of Turfan and Kucha, those in the Gansu Corridor a Han Chinese/Tibetan blend, those in the Chu Valley the West Turkistani Sogdian style, while those in Kashgar the Kashgari form. Except for the Yellow Yugurs, all the other Uighur branches eventually converted centuries later to Islam. To understand better the dynamics of conversion among the Turks, let us once more examine the reasons for the Uighur change of religion, this time from Manichaeism to Buddhism. We shall focus our discussion on the two largest groups, the Qocho (Qoco) Uighurs and Yellow Yugurs.

Previous Uighur Familiarity with Buddhism
Before the conversion of the Orkhon Uighur nobility to Manichaeism, the Uighurs had previously adopted Buddhism when they had ruled Turfan during the early seventh century. The Uighur warriors and common people had maintained a certain level of devotion to Buddhism throughout the period of the Uighur Orkhon Empire. This is evidenced by the anti-Buddhist rhetoric of some of the later Uighur qaghans. Nevertheless, the Uighur Manichaean texts of this period contained strong Buddhist elements due to the background of the Sogdian translators. Furthermore, the Uighur aristocracy itself had not been exclusively Manichaean. Many also followed the Nestorian Christian faith. Some even accepted Buddhism, as evidenced by the Tibetan emperor, Tri Relpachen, having commissioned several translations of Buddhist texts from Tibetan into Uighur shortly after the peace treaty of 821. However, there were reasons other than familiarity that undoubtedly contributed to the Uighurs’ change of religions.

The Breakup of the Tibetan Empire
In 836, four years before the Kyrgyz takeover of the Orkhon Uighur realm, Emperor Relpachen of Tibet was assassinated by his brother, Langdarma (gLang-dar-ma, r. 836 - 842). Assuming the throne, the new emperor instituted a severe repression of Buddhism throughout Tibet. It was aimed at ending the Religious Council’s interference in politics and the drain on the economy made by Tri Relpachen’s policy of legislating ever more grandiose public support of the monasteries. Langdarma closed all the monasteries and forced the monks to disrobe. He did not physically destroy these complexes, however, or their libraries. Even without access to the scriptural literature, Buddhism continued among many Tibetan lay practitioners.

In 842, the deposed head of the Religious Council, the former abbot of Samyay, assassinated Langdarma. Civil war ensued over succession to the throne, resulting in the breakup of the Tibetan Empire. Over the next two decades, Tibet gradually withdrew from its holdings in Gansu and East Turkistan. Some became independent political entities -- first Dunhuang, which became known as the state of Guiyijun (Kuei i-chün, 848 - 890s) governed by a local Han Chinese clan, and then Khotan (851 - 1006) ruled by its own, unbroken royal line. In others, local Han Chinese took initial control but did not establish a strong rule, for instance Turfan, starting in 851. By 866, however, the Uighur immigrant communities in these former Tibetan holdings had become strong enough to establish their own rule.

The Subsequent Political Division of East Turkistan and Gansu
The Qocho Uighur Kingdom (866 - 1209) at first included the area between Turfan and Beshbaliq. Eventually it spanned the northern rim of the Tarim Basin as far as Kucha. The eastern portion of the southern rim up to the borders of Khotan became no-man’s land, with a few Tibetan tribes staying behind. Trade through it between Han China and Khotan and then on to the west came to a standstill. Kashgar remained in Qarluq hands.

[ View Map Twenty-one: Central Asia, Mid-Ninth Century.]

The Yellow Yugur Kingdom (866 - 1028) occupied the Gansu Corridor. Guiyijun helped the immigrant Uighurs establish it through military aid to expel the remaining remnants of Tibetan rule. Many Tibetans fled south to the Kokonor region where most had originated and where eventually the Tsongka (Tsong-kha) Kingdom arose. The Yellow Yugurs soon turned on their allies in Guiyijun, taking it over in the 890s.

One further group of people, the Tanguts, lived in the area and soon became a major force in the historical development. They were related to the Tibetans and their territory in eastern Gansu separated the Yellow Yugurs from the Han Chinese at Chang’an. In the mid-seventh century, the Tanguts had fled their homeland in the Kokonor region due to constant attacks by central Tibet and had taken refuge in eastern Gansu under Tang protection. There they met with Buddhism for the first time. Their ranks were swelled a century later by further Tangut refugees fleeing Tibetan military activity in the region after the An Lushan rebellion.

All these areas of Gansu and East Turkistan to which Tibetan culture had spread were spared Langdarma’s repression of Buddhism. Many Tibetan Buddhist refugees, in fact, sought asylum there and thus Buddhism was flourishing in these regions when the Orkhon Uighurs arrived. Han Chinese-style Buddhism, however, was the major form but with strong Tibetan influences and, in Turfan, large doses of Sogdian and Tocharian elements.

The Repression of Buddhism in Han China
Meanwhile, Buddhism was suffering an even worse persecution in Han China than in Tibet. During the century after the Tang emperor, Xuanzong’s, reforms to curb Buddhist power, the Han Chinese Buddhist monasteries had again received tax exempt status. They held a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth, particularly precious metals used for temple images, and employed a large number of laypeople on the vast estates they owned. The ladies and eunuchs of the imperial harem were extremely devoted to the monks and nuns, and influenced the emperors to indulge these excesses.

When Emperor Wuzong (Wu-tsung, r. 841 - 847) ascended the throne, the Taoist court officials persuaded him to overthrow the previous emperor’s policy toward the Buddhist monasteries. Prompted by these officials’ jealous anxiety over the imperial harem’s influence on policy and by their concern for the national economy, Wuzong took action. In 841, he ordered all monks who kept women and preyed on the superstitions of the people to be disrobed and all excess money and real estate owned by the monasteries confiscated. In so doing, he was fulfilling the traditional role of northern Han Chinese emperors as protectors of the purity of the Buddhist doctrine.

The Taoist ministers, however, were not satisfied with the Emperor’s move. They called for the removal of all foreign influences in Han China and a return to traditional values and ethics. Identifying not only Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity, but also Buddhism as foreign religions, they moved first against the former two, as they were present in Han China on a more limited scale. In 843, they influenced the Emperor to impose a total ban on Manichaeism and Nestorian Christianity throughout the empire and evict all its clerics. This affected not only the Sogdian merchant community, but also any Uighur nobility that might seek refuge in Han China. In 845, the Taoist faction convinced the Emperor to destroy all but a few Buddhist temples and monasteries, confiscate and melt down their images made of precious metals, return all monks and nuns to lay life, dismiss all laypersons in service on monastic land, and appropriate all monastic-owned property.

Analysis of the Repression
It is noteworthy that this persecution and ban on foreign religions was never extended to Islam. The Muslim merchant community was limited to the coastal cities of the Southeast. They did not ply the Silk Route until centuries later. The Sogdians, Han Chinese, and Tibetans carried out that trade, with the Uighurs eager to gain a share. The competition was fierce and the fact that the Taoist ministers’ severity was directed not only at the Buddhists, but against the Manichaeans and Nestorian Christians as well, indicates that they were primarily motivated by economic concerns.

Tibet was in the throws of a civil war and clearly about to lose its hold over Gansu and East Turkistan. The only rivals left for the power vacuum the Tibetans would leave on the Silk Route were the Uighurs and the Sogdians. The fact that the persecution was directed only at religions held by the Sogdians, Han Chinese, Tibetans, and Uighurs, and not by the Arabs or Persians, confirms that the focus of the Tang ministers’ policy was the Silk Route and Central Asia, not the South Seas. If religious persecution in Central Asia was not being implemented for political reasons, it was for economic concerns, and hardly ever on spiritual or doctrinal grounds.

Aftermath
Upon the death of Wuzong in 847, the new emperor, Xuanzong (Hsüan-tsung, r. 847 - 860), executed the Taoist leaders and soon gave permission for the restoration of Buddhism. Most of the Han Chinese Buddhist sects, however, could not survive this severe persecution. Only the Chan (Jap. Zen) and Pure Land schools recovered, the former because of its location in the more remote mountainous areas of western Han China and its lack of dependency on monastic libraries, and the latter because of its popular, nonscholarly base.

As the Tang Dynasty withered in power until its end in 907 and Han China split apart during the Five Dynasties Period (907 - 960), the Han Chinese lost all effective influence in Central Asia. The strategy of the Taoist ministers for eliminating competition on the Silk Route and gaining economic advantage for Tang China ended in failure.

Effects of These Developments on the Uighurs’ Conversion to Buddhism
This was the political and economic context, then, within which the Orkhon Uighurs changed religions from Manichaeism to Buddhism. As with the Eastern Turk shift from shamanism to Buddhism and back, and the earlier conversion of the Uighurs from shamanism to Buddhism and then Manichaeism, three factors primarily influenced the change and choice of religion. First was the need for a unifying force to rally the people behind a new dynasty. Second was the search for supernatural power to support the new rule, based on evaluating the success of various religions in propping up other foreign regimes. Third was the overriding priority of gaining economic benefit from controlling the Silk Route trade.

The Qocho Uighurs and Yellow Yugurs were starting not only new dynasties, but also new ways of life as sedentary urban dwellers of oases. Manichaeism had proven bankrupt as a state religion capable of providing the supernatural power to sustain their previous Orkhon Empire. They needed a new religion around which to rally and to provide them with the extraworldly support needed to make the transition successfully.

The Tibetan Empire had just collapsed and Tang China was on the eve of disintegration. The Uighurs had previously fought against both and knew their strengths and weaknesses. From a nomadic, shamanic point of view, the failure of both could only be attributed to their recent persecution of Buddhism. The Tibetans and Tang China had both offended the Buddhist deities and had lost their support. The supernatural power of Buddhism was clearly proven. A century earlier the Uighurs had decided that the defeats of the Tang emperor by the Abbasids and the An Lushan rebellion had been due to the weakness of Buddhism and so had discarded that faith themselves in favor of Manichaeism. However, the course of events had shown that their evaluation had been mistaken.

Furthermore, both Tibet and Tang China were now cut off from the Silk Route and too weak to control its lucrative trade, which was still mostly in the hands of the Sogdians. Many central Tibetan and Han Chinese Buddhist refugees, fleeing persecution in their own lands, were flocking to the territories through which the eastern part of the Silk Route passed, namely Turfan, Guiyijun, the Gansu Corridor, the Kokonor region of northeastern Tibet, and the Tangut realm. This was because Buddhism continued to flourish in all these areas without government hindrance. Thus, Buddhism was undoubtedly stronger along the eastern portion of the Silk Route than Manichaeism or Nestorian Christianity was. In addition, as both Tibet and Tang China had just ended periods of repression of Buddhism, those who followed this faith along the Silk Route were without a strong royal patron. The monastics and laypeople would equally welcome a religious ruler who would assume this role.

Therefore, since Buddhism was so well-established and stable in East Turkistan and Gansu, among not only the Sogdians, but the other Central Asian peoples in the region as well, and since many Uighurs were already familiar with it, particularly those already living in these areas, Buddhism was the logical choice of religion for the Qocho Uighur and Yellow Yugur princes. Becoming the upholders of Buddhism would put them in the strongest position to be accepted as lords and protectors of the Silk Route. The rulers of both kingdoms, therefore, assumed the title “bodhisattva prince,” as previous Uighur rulers had done a century and a half earlier when they had formerly controlled Turfan.

With the help of the multilingual Sogdians, the Uighurs now began translating the Buddhist scriptures into their language, not from Sogdian editions, however, but from Han Chinese and Tocharian texts, borrowing elements from previous Old Turk translations. The Sogdians did not translate from their own texts perhaps because they wished to maintain their unique cultural identity and not become lost in a Uighur Buddhist culture in which everyone followed the same scriptural tradition.

The Position of Islam at the End of the Early Abbasid Period
In the mid-ninth century when the Abbasid caliphate was beginning to lose its direct hold on Central Asia, Islam was still mostly limited there to Sogdia. It was found among the Arab descendants and the local population who had accepted the faith not out of force, but mostly due to the attraction of Islamic high culture. When the Abbasids had led jihads against Surashtra and Kabul, although their opponents were Buddhists, their holy wars had not been aimed at destroying Buddhism per se. In both cases, the Muslim leaders had confused the upholders of Buddhism with the anti-Abbasid Musalemiyya and Manichaean Shiite rebels. For the most part, the Abbasids were tolerant of Buddhism and maintained trade and cultural relations with Buddhist countries.

In the following decades a major shift occurred as Central Asia came under the rule of various Turkic peoples. Several of the Turkic states adopted Islam because their leaders had been slave military chiefs under the Abbasids and had won their freedom by converting to Islam. One of them, however, the Qarakhanid state, voluntarily accepted Islam for many of the same reasons that previous Turkic peoples, such as the Eastern Turks and Uighurs, had earlier changed religions and adopted Buddhism, shamanism, or Manichaeism. Foremost on the minds of these Turkic rulers were issues of supernatural power to support their state and geopolitical strategies for gaining control of the Silk Route trade. The further spread of Islam into Central Asia and India and its interaction with Buddhism in both these regions will become more understandable within that context.

Previous Chapter 11 Book Contents Next Chapter 13
Make the Dharma available to all.
Please help us with this!
This Website relies completely on your donations. If you found this article useful and think it would be beneficial for others, please consider giving a donation to help make more material available free of charge.

Thank you very much!


Back ^Top of Page Home
Page Contents
The Kyrghyz Conquest of Mongolia
The Uighur Migration into Turkistan and the Gansu Corridor
Previous Uighur Familiarity with Buddhism
The Breakup of the Tibetan Empire
The Subsequent Political Division of East Turkistan and Gansu
The Repression of Buddhism in Han China
Analysis of the Repression
Aftermath
Effects of These Developments on the Uighurs’ Conversion to Buddhism
The Position of Islam at the End of the Early Abbasid Period

From:http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/images/en/map20.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/e-books/unpublished_manuscripts/historical_interaction/pt2/history_cultures_12.html&h=447&w=610&sz=54&hl=de&start=568&um=1&tbnid=gdpTVcUil_6BUM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Duighur%26start%3D558%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dde%26lr%3Dlang_de%257Clang_en%257Clang_tr%257Clang_hu%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN

Three dead as unrest flares in China's restive Uyghuristan


BEIJING (AFP) - Three security officers were killed in China's remote northwest on Tuesday, state media reported, raising the death toll from over a week of unrest there that has flared during the Olympics to 31.

Assailants jumped off a vehicle passing through a checkpoint in the Xinjiang region and stabbed four security officers, killing three of them and injuring the other, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The attack was the third in eight days in Xinjiang, a vast desert region bordering central Asia that is experiencing its biggest spike in violence in years.

Analysts attribute the surge to separatists from Xinjiang's repressed Muslim Uighur ethnic minority who are seeking to raise publicity for their cause while world attention is on China for the Beijing Olympics, which began last week.

China has also repeatedly warned that "terrorists" from Xinjiang are trying to sabotage the Games, but insisted massive security across the country will ensure there is no direct attack on the Olympics.

Xinhua said Tuesday's killings happened in Yamanya town, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Kashgar, one of Xinjiang's major cities where 16 policemen were murdered in the first attack on August 4.

ADVERTISEMENT


China said terrorists seeking holy war carried out that attack, in which two assailants who were later captured drove a truck at a group of policemen, then attacked the officers with machetes and explosives.

The next flashpoint in Xinjiang was the city of Kuqa, where assailants using home-made bombs targetted police and government offices, as well as public buildings, on Sunday.

One security guard was killed and 11 attackers died in those bombings and ensuing clashes with police, according to Xinhua.

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman of the German-based World Uighur Congress, said authorities in Kuqa had since detained over 90 innocent Uighurs.

"This includes women," he wrote in an email, quoting local Uighurs he had talked to by telephone. "They have also been mass detentions in adjacent areas."

It has proved extremely difficult to obtain independent information about recent events in Xinjiang, with the official Chinese account coming out through Xinhua and local authorities generally refusing to talk to foreign press.

Police and other authorities there refused to comment to AFP about Tuesday's incident.

"It's not convenient for us to talk about this right now," a police officer in Kashgar told AFP.

It was not immediately clear how many people were involved in Tuesday's attack, according to Xinhua, which said the assailants remained at large.

Xinhua did not specify what organisation the security staff killed in the attack belonged to.

Xinjiang has about 18.3 million ethnic Muslim Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people many of whom express anger at what they say have been decades of repressive Communist Chinese rule.

The Uighurs established two short-lived East Turkestan republics in Xinjang in the 1930s and 1940s, when Chinese central government control was weakened by civil war and Japanese invasion.

Tensions have simmered over the decades but experts say such deadly attacks such as those over the past week have not been seen since the late 1990s.

From:http://asia.news.yahoo.com/080812/afp/080812112626asiapacificnews.html

Renewed Violence in Eastturkistan/West China

Three security staff have been stabbed to death in China's Uyghuristan/ Xinjiang region, the third attack there in eight days. Three security staff have been stabbed to death in China's Uyghuristan region, the third attack in eight days there.

Assailants killed the men at a checkpoint near the city of Kashgar, Chinese state media said. Assailants killed the men at a checkpoint near the city of Kashgar, Chinese state media said.

Sixteen police officers were killed in an attack in Kashgar earlier this month, but state media said there was no evidence linking the two attacks. Sixteen police officers were killed in an attack in Kashgar earlier this month, but state media said there was no evidence linking the two attacks.

Uyghuristan/Xinjiang is home to many Muslim Uighurs, some of whom want independence in the region they call East Turkestan. Uyghuristan/Xinjiang is home to many Muslim Uighurs, some of whom want independence in the region they call Uyghuristan/East Turkestan.

There has been a rise in violent incidents in Eastturkistan/Xinjiang in recent months, which China has blamed on separatists seeking to disrupt the Olympic Games. There has been a rise in violent incidents in Uyghuristan/Xinjiang in recent months, which China has blamed on separatists seeking to disrupt the Olympic Games.

Suspected Muslim separatists also launched a series of bomb attacks in Kuqa, in southern Uyghutristan/Xinjiang, on Sunday, which left 11 dead. Suspected Muslim separatists also launched a series of bomb attacks in Kuqa, in southern Uyghuristan/Xinjiang, on Sunday, which left 11 dead.

Arrest report Arrest Report

Tuesday's attack happened at a checkpoint about 30 km (18 miles) from the border city of Kashgar. Tuesday's attack happened at a checkpoint about 30 km (18 miles) from the border city of Kashgar.

Attackers - it is not clear how many - jumped out of a passing vehicle and stabbed the men to death. Attackers - it is not clear how many - jumped out of a passing vehicle and the men stabbed to death. Three men died and a fourth was injured, Xinhua news agency said. Three men died and a fourth was injured, Xinhua news agency said.

News of the attack emerged hours after Chinese state media announced that the situation in Kuqa, scene of Sunday's attacks, had returned to normal. News of the attack emerged hours after Chinese state media announced that the situation in Kuqa, scene of Sunday's attacks, had returned to normal.


Q&A: China and the Uighurs Q & A: China and the Uighurs

Early on Sunday, a string of explosions took place in supermarkets, hotels and government buildings across the city. Early on Sunday, a string of explosions took place in supermarkets, hotels and government buildings across the city.

One security guard died, two attackers blew themselves up and eight were shot by police, Xinhua said. One security guard died, two attackers blew themselves up and eight were shot by police, Xinhua said.

A Uighur activist has accused Chinese authorities of arresting dozens of people in the wake of the blasts. A Uighur activist has accused Chinese authorities of arresting dozens of people in the wake of the blasts.

Dilxat Raxit, of the pro-independence World Uighur Congress, said more than 90 people had been arrested in Kuqa, as well as others in nearby counties. Dilxat Raxit, of the pro-independence World Uighur Congress, said more than 90 people had been arrested in Kuqa, as well as others in nearby counties.

Local people had heard the sound of detainees being beaten and tortured, he said in a statement. Local people had heard the sound of detainees being beaten and tortured, he said in a statement.

He urged the international community to put pressure on China to end "inhumane crimes against ethnic Uighurs". He urged the international community to put pressure on China to end "inhumane crimes against ethnic Uighurs."

But the Kuqa local government said that Mr Raxit's allegations were untrue. But the Kuqa local government said that Mr Raxit's allegations were untrue.

Xinjiang is home to more than eight million Uighurs. Xinjiang is home to more than eight million Uighurs.

China says it is bringing development and prosperity to the region, but activists accuse Beijing of suppressing traditional Uighur culture and religion. China says it is bringing development and prosperity to the region, but activists accuse Beijing of suppressing traditional Uighur culture and religion.
From:http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7555831.stm&usg=ALkJrhglDWqXIYeymcZjAJ9hzhyfiBFGNg

China's forgotten people
Amy Reger

Published 08 August 2008

6 comments Print version Listen RSS This week's terror attack in China has brought an intense barrage of publicity to the Uighurs. Amy Reger writes that one violent act does not represent more than 10 million people


In the tiny offices of the Uyghur American Association/Uyghur Human Rights Project, our phones have rung off the hook since Monday morning. Journalists from four continents have called to hear our comments regarding Monday’s attack in Kashgar, East Turkestan, in which 16 border police were killed. Chinese government authorities are reporting that the attack was carried out by two young Uighur men, a fruit vendor and a taxi driver. Acts of this nature threaten to undermine the progress we have made in peaceful Uighur human rights advocacy in a single blow. They also threaten to instantly reduce the Uighur people and their rich cultural tapestry into a one-dimensional image of violence in the minds of millions.

While we welcome all media inquiries, it is unfortunate that an appalling, violent act such as this has been the impetus for an unprecedented level of interest in Uighurs and in our organization, which is dedicated to peacefully promoting human rights and democracy for the Uighur people. It is a tragedy that for most people around the world hearing news of the attack, this is the first time they will have ever heard of the Uighur people − and now, in their minds, the word “Uighur” will be associated with violence and the word “terrorism” that is splashed across the headlines of the world’s newspapers. Unsubstantiated links to Al-Qaeda proffered by China’s official media have been widely re-published in many Western news reports −the suggested linkage is too newsworthy to ignore, yet at the same time impossible for deadline-pressed media to independently check out.

Unfortunately for Uighurs, they live in a world where their belief in Islam, despite their strongly pro-Western attitudes and the traditionally moderate practice of their faith, unfairly brands them as a group that is prone to violence and fundamentalism. Moreover, the Chinese government has exploited the demonization of Islam and the “global war on terror” in order to justify its heavy-handed repression of millions of Uighurs. China’s propaganda apparatus has become increasingly sophisticated at projecting an image on the world stage of a major, well-organized Uighur terrorist threat, which helps to crowd out discussion of the decades-long history of human rights abuses visited upon the Uighurs.

The more than ten million Uighurs of East Turkestan face human rights abuses nearly identical to those faced by Tibetans; arbitrary detention and imprisonment, religious repression, economic and educational discrimination, and the steady eradication of their language and culture from public life and institutions. While many people around the world have some knowledge of the suffering of the Tibetan people (thanks to decades of courageous advocacy on the part of Tibetans and their supporters), and a sympathetic view of Buddhism, relatively few have heard of the Uighurs and their plight, and their religion makes it easy for people to accept Chinese government assertions about Muslim “extremism” among Uighurs. In addition, the Chinese government frequently applies the “terrorist” label to Uighurs where it would use the term “separatist” to describe Tibetans or other groups.

The Uighur American Association’s small staff faces a daunting challenge – how to compete with a relentless Chinese government propaganda machine, and attempt to inform the world about human rights abuses committed against a people they’ve probably never heard of except in relation to a violent act. We must also attempt to ensure that no one misinterprets our human rights advocacy as an attempt to downplay or justify a terrible act of aggression. We face an uphill battle against facile sensationalism, exploited by the Chinese government; we are also competing against a sea of Olympic puff-pieces and “colour stories” produced by multi-million-dollar television news outlets. Relatively few news outlets dare to venture out of comfortable territory to produce nuanced pieces on Uighurs or similarly non-traditional subjects.
However, facing a much graver set of circumstances are the Uighur people in East Turkestan themselves, and particularly Uighurs in Kashgar, who are now being subjected to even greater intimidation and persecution than ever before. We have reliable reports of Uighurs being summarily rounded up in one area of Kashgar in the past week; police going door-to-door in Uighur neighborhoods and checking everyone’s identity papers; the closure of at least one mosque in the city, and the stepped-up blockage of Internet access.

In recent months in East Turkestan, Uighurs’ passports have been almost universally confiscated by authorities; large numbers of Uighurs have been evicted from major cities in East Turkestan, including those who had legal rights to stay in those cities; and at least one mosque was destroyed, apparently due to parishioners’ refusal to post Olympics slogans on its walls. In addition, Uighurs in East Turkistan have been told to avoid contact with foreigners, especially foreign journalists, and Uighur imams have been ordered to undergo “political education” regarding the Olympics.

Many Uighurs who had been living in Beijing have been forced to leave the city, and official directives have been issued to hotels and guesthouses throughout Beijing not to permit Uighurs to stay there.
On July 9, five young Uighurs were shot to death without warning by police in the regional capital of Urumchi, in a raid on an alleged “holy war training group”. On the same day, following a mass sentencing rally in Kashgar, two Uyghurs were executed and 15 others were handed sentences ranging from 10 years in prison to death on unsubstantiated terror-related charges. Schoolchildren were among the 10,000 Uighurs forced to attend the rally.

Since 2001, using “terrorism” as a justification, the Chinese government has undertaken a renewed, systematic, and sustained crackdown on all forms of Uyghur dissent. Those targeted in this crackdown include two sons of Uighur freedom movement leader Rebiya Kadeer, Alim and Ablikim Abdureyim, serving lengthy prison sentences because of their mother’s Uighur human rights advocacy (Ms. Kadeer is president of the Uyghur American Association); Nurmemet Yasin, a young intellectual imprisoned for writing a story about a pigeon that authorities deemed subversive; and schoolteacher Abdulghani Memetemin, imprisoned for providing documentation of human rights abuses to an overseas group.

While the Chinese government promotes an image of itself as a nation unified in ethnic brotherhood, in the manner of the Olympic slogan “One World, One Dream,” it is simultaneously demonizing the Uighur people as a whole. It has every right to condemn a violent attack on its soil, and to secure itself against the threat of violence and terrorism throughout the PRC. But the killings in Kashgar should not be used as an excuse to continue and even intensify egregious human rights abuses in East Turkestan. They should also not be used as a vehicle to exacerbate tensions between Han Chinese and Uighurs.

The international community should also refrain from judging the Uighur people as a whole on the actions of a tiny minority. We urge readers to learn more about the Uighur people and their rich Turkic heritage and culture; to visit East Turkestan if you are traveling to China to attend the Olympics; and to educate yourself about the harsh, government-sponsored suppression that is threatening to eradicate Uighurs’ culture and way of life.

Amy Reger is principal researcher for the Uyghur American Association’s Uyghur Human Rights Project, based in Washington, D.C.

From:http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2008/08/human-rights-uighurs-china

China's Uighur rebels switch to suicide bombs

Richard Lloyd Parry in Kuqa

Staats Teror In Eastturkistan

Suicide pipe bombers made a dozen attacks on police stations, government offices and businesses yesterday as Muslim separatists in the far northwest of China stepped up their Olympics bombing campaign.

At least 11 people died in the raids, which took place before dawn in Kuqa, an oasis city on the northern edge of the Taklimakan desert in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang. Ten of the dead were reported to be attackers, three of whom appear to have blown themselves up to avoid capture.

It was an unprecedented event in China, which has no history of suicide bombing, and a grave escalation of the deteriorating security situation in one of its most tense and isolated areas.

Last night checkpoints sealed off the road to the police headquarters where attackers detonated a wagon filled with explosives at 2.30am, killing a civilian guard and injuring two police. According to the Xinhua news agency, the police fired back, killing one of the attackers and capturing two after a fourth killed himself with his bomb.


Half an hour earlier, an explosion blew out windows in a row of businesses. The owner of one café, where people were drinking at the time of the explosion, said: “Suddenly there was a big bang. The customers and I just ran away. When I looked back, my shop was totally destroyed.”

At 8.30am, police cornered five of the alleged attackers under a market stall. Two were shot dead as they threw their bombs while the other three blew themselves up. There were also attacks on a local government building and the premises of a trade organisation. A curfew was imposed and businesses in Kuqa county were ordered to close as police hunted for attackers, who, said Xinhua, had used bombs made from pipes, gas canisters and containers of liquid gas.

Kuqa is in the northern part of Xinjiang, a vast region of desert and mountainwhere the predominantly Muslim Uighur people are the largest ethnic population. In the months preceding the Olympics there had been increasing activity by separatist organisations seeking to establish an independent Islamic state of “East Turkestan”. Chinese authorities have reported a series of plots, including schemes to kidnap athletes and bomb a domestic flight, while bombs on buses killed five people in southwest China. There were doubts about whether they were serious threats or had been exaggerated by the authorities to justify intense Olympics security measures.

It was only last Monday, when 16 policemen were killed in a knife and bomb attack in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar, that it became clear that the dormant campaign for an independent East Turkestan had been revived.

Shi Dagang, a senior communist party official in Kashgar, said: “They are trying to turn 2008 into a year of mourning for China. I admit that we face a severe campaign because I know that these people will not lose their momentum.”

Two videos, of dubious authenticity, have been posted on the internet by a group claiming responsibility for the bus bombings. The latest, which appeared last Friday, told Muslims to avoid ethnic Chinese - difficult even in Xinjiang, where immigrants from the east almost match the Uighur population in numbers

From:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4499762.ece

Female suicide bombers in Uighur separatist war in Estturkistan

Lloyd Parry, Kuqa

Two women, including a teenage girl, were among the suicide attackers who launched a series of bomb attacks on a police station, government offices and shops, according to a senior official in China’s troubled north-western region of Xinjiang.

Chinese police in black body armour and carrying machine guns and rifles hunted for three escaped suspects yesterday, after the attacks on Sunday morning, the latest in a series of violent incidents apparently carried out by separatist insurgents and timed to coincide with the Beijing Olympics.

A 15-year old girl identified as Hailiqiemu Abulizi was said to be in a stable condition last night, after being injured when a home made bomb exploded prematurely. She underwent surgery after suffering 17 separate injuries, including a broken leg and foot.

Another woman, who has not been identified by the authorities, died after setting off a bomb which she was carrying in order to avoid imminent capture as she and four of her fellow attackers were cornered in a bazaar in the oasis town of Kuqa in China’s Xinjiang region. According to the Chinese authorities, ten of the attackers died in the attack, all of them Uighurs, a Muslim people who form the biggest ethnic group in Xinjiang.

Related Links
China fears 'year-long terror campaign'
Islamist bombers target Olympics
Islamic parts of China
A Uighur passer-by who was caught up in the attacks died in hospital yesterday, the second man to be killed by the bombings which injured five others. Three of the attackers were arrested, and ten died, including two who killed themselves with their own bombs.

“If they are [Uighur] nationalists, then why didn’t they attack Chinese people?” asked Mu Tielifuhasimu, head of Aksu prefecture of which Kuqa is part. “They actually killed two Uighur people, and injured other innocent people in the streets.”

In fact the seventeen separate attacks seem to have planned with the intention of avoiding harm to Uighurs or civilians. They began at about 2.30 in the morning, a time when few people were on the streets, and were directed at the police headquarters, a government building and shops and businesses owned by ethnic Han Chinese, whom some Uighurs resent as colonialist interlopers.

Witnesses, most of whom refused to give their names, described chaotic early morning scenes as armed police hunted down the fleeing attackers through the back alleys of Kuqa. The bloody end came at around 8.30am with a last desperate stand among the empty stalls and shops of the night bazaar. A two minute film shot by one man on his camera phone from a high building overlooking the scene, and obtained by The Times, shows police cars driving down the street, and figures running for cover, while a voice, presumably that of a policeman, barks through a megaphone.

“I live nearby and I could hear explosions and shooting,” a Chinese man named Ma said. “Judging from the noise, there were a lot of explosions. I peeped out and saw police everywhere, coming from every direction to arrest them.” Most traces of the attacks had been cleared up by yesterday, although there were still fragments of broken glass in front of a row of damaged shops and windows close to the market were pierced by bullet holes.

Mr Mu said that the attackers were all Uighurs, but said that it was too early to draw conclusions about their motives or whether they were members of an organisation. He also declined to speculate on a link with an attack eight days ago in which 16 police were killed in the Uyghuristan/Xinjiang city of Kashgar by two men who drove a lorry into them, stabbed and bombed them.

But there are no plausible candidates other than the shadowy groups who, over the years, have called for independence for the region which they refer to as East Turkestan. “I think we are seeing an upturn in Uighur militancy,” said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher based in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch, and an expert on Uyghuristan/Xinjiang.

“This [series of attacks on Monday] is unprecedented in terms of its organisation. It is an incredible act of defiance during the Olympics, a moment most precious to the government when they most want to avoid any kind of trouble or separatist violence.” He said that the use of female suicide attackers appeared to be a first.

Journalist working in Kuqa were closely monitored by police and officials and The Times photographer, Jack Hill, was detained for hours yesterday after Kuqa police insisted that the identity documents issued by Beijing police were inadequate. He was eventually released after intervention from Mr Mu, but forbidden from taking photographs in the town.

From:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4507446.ece

Chinese separatists 'planning year-long terror campaign'

Richard Lloyd Parry in Kashgar, Uyghuristan



Islamic separatists in western China are executing a carefully laid plan to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and make 2008 a “year of mourning”, a senior Chinese official claimed today — a day after a devastating attack that killed 16 policemen in the desert city of Kashgar.

In the first official response to the attacks, Shi Dagang, a senior Communist Party official in Kashgar, said that China faced a long struggle against terrorism perpetrated by local and foreign separatists seeking to establish an independent state of East Turkestan in the Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province.

“Since last year, East Turkestan forces have tried to launch sabotage and violence against the Beijing Games,” Mr Shi said. “They are trying to turn 2008 into a year of mourning for China.

“I admit that we face a severe campaign because I know that these people will not lose their momentum, but we are confident that we can control the broader environment.”

Related Links
Ideas of harmony destroyed on New Frontier
China tightens security after lethal attack
Has China got a terrorist problem?
Extra police were visible at tourist sites in the city and, according to Chinese state media, cars coming into the city were being searched after yesterday's grenade attack.

Describing it as a “well planned attack”, Mr Shi said that a stolen lorry was driven from behind into a group of border patrolmen out on their morning jog. One of the two attackers had lost an arm as he set off a homemade bomb, but his companion threw more bombs, and set about the injured survivors with knives.

The two men were overcome and arrested. In their lorry, they were found to be carrying nine bombs, two long knives, two daggers and a gun.

They had allegedly also written wills in which they were quoted as saying: “Faith is more important than life, more important than the prosperity of family, more important than a mother's love. Therefore, we will pursue jihad with all our might.”


Mr Shi named two groups that he said were targeting the Olympics: the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim) and the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation. “At the beginning of this year, Etim dispatched orders that from April and May, they will launch major incidents until the Beijing Games . . . this is the reality that we have to face, a combination of internal and external forces, jointly co-ordinating a series of attacks.”

The Chinese authorities have reported several incidents this year which they have attributed to East Turkestan terrorists, including the attempted bombing of a domestic passenger plane and bus bombs in the southwest city of Kunming. Responsibility for the latter was claimed on the internet in the name of Etim, but Chinese officials and foreign analysts have expressed doubts about the claims.

The attack, the biggest of its kind in ten years, caused alarm but little surprise in Kashgar, an oasis town on the ancient Silk Route, where Chinese immigrants are greatly outnumbered by Uighur locals. Most people refused to discuss the incident, for fear of getting into trouble with the security forces, but the few who were prepared to speak anonymously expressed mixed feeling about the effect of the attack.

Were these rather vague reports serious terrorist threats or an effort by the Chinese authorities to justify the intense security measures imposed on the country during the Olympics? Monday's attack proves that, however much the Chinese security forces may manipulate information, they also face a real threat.



Have your say

UYgurs have been suppressed by Chinese communist. They can not even use their own language and call East Turkistan to their Homeland. They can not carry and fly their flag over East Turkistan-chinese xinjiang. It is forbidden with death sentence.
Imagine if Scots people can't fly Scottish Flag

Turan, London, England
From:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4464246.ece

Renewed bomb attacks kill five in China

(Xinhua/Shen Qiao/Reuters)
The Hualin Market in Kuqa, which was bombed by the attackers

Richard Lloyd Parry in Beijing

At least five people were killed and several more were critically injured in a series of bomb explosions in China's far west region of Xinjiang, in what looks increasingly like a concerted bombing campaign by Muslim separatists to coincide with the Beijing Olympics.

Witnesses described how attackers threw home made bombs at a police station and office buildings, injuring police and security guards and destroying two police cars. Five of the attackers were reported to have been killed at the scene.

The state Xinhua new agency reported a series of explosions between 3.20am and 4am in the oasis town of Kuqa, 2,500 miles west of Beijing in the Taklimakan Desert. "Flashes of fire" and gunshots were reported after the explosions, the report said, and police were hunting for further suspects.

"There were several explosions in several places in the county seat of Kuqa this morning and we heard them from the hospital," a hospital employee named Ms Tian told the Associated Press from Kuqa. She confirmed that one man was pronounced dead upon arrival while others arrived in a critical condition.


Kuqa is in the northern part of Xinjiang, a vast region of deserts and mountains, where the Uighur people, who are predominantly Muslim, are the largest ethnic population. The months preceding the Olympics have seen increasing activity by shadowy separatist organisations who seek to throw off the government of communist China and establish the independent Islamic state of "East Turkistan".

Chinese authorities have reported a series of terrorist plots, including a scheme to kidnap Olympic athletes, an attempt to set off a bomb on a domestic flight, and bombs on buses which killed five people in south-west China. But foreign analysts have expressed doubts as to whether these were serious terrorist threats, or were exaggerated by the Chinese authorities to justify the intense security measures imposed on the country during the Olympics.

It was only last Monday, when 16 policemen were killed in a frenzied knife and bomb attack in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar, that it became clear beyond doubt that the dormant campaign for an independent East Turkistan had been violently revived.

The local authorities said that the attack was part of an Olympic terrorism campaign. "They are trying to turn 2008 into a year of mourning for China," said Shi Dagang, a senior communist party official in Kashgar. "I admit that we face a severe campaign because I know that these people will not lose their momentum."

"With the special background of the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games, hostile forces at home and abroad will surely act like cornered mad dogs and step up their terror and sabotage activities," said the governor of Xinjiang, Nuer Baikeli, in the provincial newspaper on Friday.

Two videos, of dubious authenticity, have been posted on the Internet by a group claiming responsibility for the bus bombings. The latest, which appeared last Friday just before the opening of the Games, warned Muslims to avoid ethnic Chinese - a difficult task even in Xinjiang, where immigrants from the east of the country almost match the local Uighur population in numbers.

In the video a masked fighter with a rifle stood in front of a burning Olympic symbol, and said: "Do not stay on the same bus, on the same train, on the same plane, in the same buildings, or any place as the Chinese."

From:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4495365.ece

Report: Attack on government facilities kills 8 in remote China

(CNN) - Pre-dawn clashes in a remote northwestern county Sunday killed at least eight people, including a security guard, after using handmade explosive assailants attacked police and government facilities, China's state-run Xinhua reported.


A bombing broke windows and scattered debris Sunday at Hualin Market in northwest China's Kuqa County. A bombing broke windows and scattered debris Sunday at Hualin Market in northwest China's Kuqa County.

Chinese authorities cordoned off the area and ordered all businesses closed in Kuqa County, located in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which borders Tibet. Chinese authorities cordoned off the area and ordered all businesses closed in Kuqa County, located in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which borders Tibet. The county is home to about 400,000 people. The county is home to about 400.000 people.

Xinhua reported that seven attackers were among those killed, four of them by suicide. Xinhua reported that seven attackers were among those killed, four of them by suicide. Last month, officials said they cracked five terrorist groups in the autonomous region that allegedly were plotting to sabotage the Summer Olympics in Beijing, about 1,740 miles (2,800 km) from Kuqa County. Last month, officials said they cracked five terrorist groups in the autonomous region that were allegedly plotting to sabotage the Summer Olympics in Beijing, about 1740 miles (2800 km) from Kuqa County.

Sunday's attacks began about 2:30 am with an explosion at a public security bureau. Sunday's attacks began about 2:30 am with an explosion at a public security bureau. The blast killed a security guard and wounded two police officers and two civilians, Xinhua said. The blast killed a security guard and wounded two police officers and two civilians, Xinhua said. Watch how the region has become volatile » Watch how the region has become volatile "

Police fatally shot one of the attackers and captured another one. Police fatally shot one of the attackers and captured another one. A third bomber killed himself, the news agency reported. A third bomber killed himself, the news agency reported.

Hours later, police located five attackers hiding under a market counter and shot two of them dead. Hours later, police located five attackers hiding under a market counter and shot two of them dead. The other three committed suicide, Xinhua said. The other three committed suicide, Xinhua said.

Authorities said 15 people -- using explosives made of pipes, gas canisters and liquid gas tanks -- took part in 12 bombings. Authorities said 15 people - using explosives made of pipes, gas canisters and liquid gas tanks - took part in 12 bombings.

Don't Miss Do not Miss
Explosions kill two in northwest China Explosions kill two in northwest China
Chinese paramilitary said to attack journalists Chinese paramilitary attack said to journalists
China on alert after deadly border attack China on alert after deadly border attack
An attack in the same region Monday killed 16 police officers and injured 16 more when two men crashed a dump truck into a group of police officers before throwing at least five homemade bombs into their barracks. An attack in the same region Monday killed 16 police officers and injured 16 more when two men crashed a dump truck into a group of police officers before throwing at least five homemade bombs into their barracks.

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region -- also called East Turkistan -- is home to a Sunni Muslim ethnic minority. The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region - also called East Turkistan - is home to a Sunni Muslim ethnic minority. Uighurs in Xinjiang are supposed to enjoy regional autonomy, as guaranteed by China's constitution, but some seek independence. Uighurs in Xinjiang are supposed to enjoy regional autonomy, as guaranteed by China's constitution, but some seek independence.

Millions of Han Chinese, the country's dominant ethnic group, have migrated into Xinjiang over the past 60 years, prompting complaints that they dominate local politics, culture and commerce at the Uighurs' expense. Millions of Han Chinese, the country's dominant ethnic group, have migrated into Xinjiang over the past 60 years, prompting complaints that they dominate local politics, culture and commerce at the Uighurs' expense.

The dissatisfaction has turned violent at times, including several sometimes-deadly bus bombings in 1992 in the provincial capital, Urumqi. The dissatisfaction has turned violent at times, including several sometimes-deadly bus bombings in 1992 in the provincial capital, Urumqi. Officials blamed such incidents on Uighur groups seeking an independent Muslim state. Officials blamed such incidents on Uighur groups seeking an independent Muslim state.

From:CNN.com/asia