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Suspected Terrorists Arrested in China's Xinjiang
Region
BEIJING, Dec 27 (AFP) - More than
300 suspected members of terrorist organisations
apparently led by ethnic Chinese have been arrested in
China's northwestern Xinjiang province over the past
few days, according to local sources.
Some 318 suspects were stopped in the Tianshan area,
the region's public security chief said, referring to
an autonomous region of ethnic Uighur Muslims where
unrest is usually blamed on separatists.
He said 26 were members of a terrorist group directed
by a man known as Li Fei, while 17 belonged to a
terrorist group under another leader, Ma Fuquan.
An unspecified number were aligned with a third group
directed by Wang Meng.
All three names resemble Han Chinese rather than the
monickers of Uighurs, whose separatist elements are
labelled terrorists by Beijing.
Twenty nine among those detained as part of China's
hardline "strike hard" against crime policy were
already the subject of arrest warrants, the security
spokesman said.
Those arrested were members of a total of 13 criminal
groups, three of which are classed as terrorist, he
added. Some 372 firearms were seized during the
arrests.
The suspects included people charged with 10 attacks
involving explosives.
According to Dilixiadi Rexiti of the Information
center for Eastern Turkestan, a German-based
organisation which supports East Turkestan's
independence from China, the arrests indicate that
unrest in Xinjiang blamed on Muslim separtists was
actually the work of ethnic Chinese.
They "show once again that terrorist acts which
disturb law and order in areas inhabited by Uighurs
are the work of Hans," he said.
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ETIC REPORT 2000 
