As Americans are asking questions about the Tsarnaev brothers in particular and Chechen terrorism in particular, there’s another strain of Islamic terrorism that China is as familiar with as Russia is with Chechen terrorists. The Uyghurs can be found in the northwestern region of China knowns as the Xinjiang province.
A confrontation involving axes, knives, at least one gun that ended with the burning down of a house left 21 people dead in China’s troubled far-west region of Xinjiang, a government spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
It was the deadliest violence in the region since July 2009, when Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, was rocked by clashes between majority Han Chinese and minority Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people.
Nine residents, six police and six ethnic Uighurs were killed in Tuesday’s drama, said Hou Hanmin, spokeswoman for the Xinjiang government. “It’s certainly a terrorist attack,” she said.
It was not immediately clear how many burned to death.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, the stated reasons for the Uyghurs wanting to fight China appear to be somewhat similar to the stated reasons for the Chechens’ fight with Russia.
Hou did not name any group, but China has blamed previous attacks in energy-rich Xinjiang – strategically located on the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Central Asia – on Islamic separatists who want to establish an independent East Turkestan.
Folks, this is where those who tout the European anti-Christ model or the Russian model, or the Chinese model hit a bit of a roadblock.
The U.S., Russia, and China all have Islamic terrorism problems. They’re all fighting the same enemies – Islamic ideologues who seek a global caliphate based in Turkey. In the case of the U.S., defeat of the terrorists is not a matter of ability; it’s a matter of will and apathy. With Russia, Chechens have been openly fighting them for centuries. When it comes to China, that country has seen an increase in Uyghur aggression after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Kazakstan, Kyrgystan, and Tajiikstan (each borders China) are all home to the Turkish-influenced Uyghurs. Ironically, there is a Uyghur presence in Afghanistan as well. Muslim Uyghurs that were primarily known as being Muslim in Name Only (MINO) had a greater opportunity to be exposed to radicalization as a direct result of former Soviet satellite countries that bordered China, declaring independence. IN fact, the rise of Islamic terror attacks in China seemed to coincide with the fall of the Soviet Union. – The Case FOR Islamophobia, p. 360
The common enemy of the U.S., Russia, and China is Islamic terrorists. Perhaps one day, those three nations will align to confront the threat, though highly unlikely until Barack Obama leaves office.