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Chinese police raid underground armory in restive
Xinjiang region;
BEIJING (AP) _ Authorities
uncovered an underground munitions workshop linked to
separatists in the restive Xinjiang region and
arrested nine people on suspicion of terrorist
activities, a police official said Monday.
The workshop, dug out of the ground and covered with
camouflage, was discovered Sept. 13 near the town of
Artush, said a spokesman for the Artush police. Police
found 101 handmade grenades inside, said the man, who
identified himself only by his surname, Wang.
It wasn't clear when the arrests were made, but Wang
said the main suspect, identified by the single name
of Kurbanjan, later escaped and remained at large
Monday.
He said the workshop was run by ``terrorists and
splittists,'' standard Beijing terminology for groups
fighting Chinese rule in the region.
Xinjiang's indigenous people, known as Uighurs, are
Turkic Muslims whose culture and language share little
with that of the majority Han Chinese.
An overseas spokesman for the Uighur independence
movement said the workshop was discovered Sept. 15 and
hundreds of homemade guns and grenades were found
inside.
A group of men, including Kurbanjan, were arrested on
the spot, said the spokesman, Dilxat Rexiti of the
East Turkestan Information, who is based in Sweden. He
said Kurbanjan escaped while being transported to jail.
Rexiti said the men had nothing to do with
international terrorism but would not say if they were
linked to the independence movement or address the
charges against them.
``Whatever they did, it was a response to the terrible
repression against them,'' he said.
News of the discovery provided a rare look into the
low-level violence simmering in Xinjiang, where
separatists have staged bombings and assassinations
and Chinese authorities have responded with a
widespread crackdown.
China has portrayed those fighting for independence
for Xinjiang as part of international Islamic
terrorism networks. Uighur activists deny the claim,
and Amnesty International and other international
rights groups say China is using the international
anti-terror campaign as a pretext for ratcheting up
repression in Xinjiang.
At the same time, officials have eagerly sought to
assure foreign investors that the sparsely populated,
largely poor region is calm.
Last week, Xinjiang's governor, Abulahat Abdurixit,
was quoted by the region's daily newspaper as telling
a South Carolina business delegation that government
incentives made the region an excellent place to
invest.
``At present, Xinjiang's society is stable,'' the
Xinjiang Daily quoted him as saying. ``The ethnicities
are united, and there is an excellent investment
environment.''
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