August 2008

The ancient city of Kashgar, commercial crossroads of the medieval Silk Road and home to the world's largest and most exotic Sunday market, seems an unlikely site for a terrorist atrocity.

With a protest by Tibetan rights activist Wednesday, an attack against police officers in Xinjiang this week and a South Korean TV station managing to film a rehearsal of the secretive opening ceremony recently, the issue of security is proving to be a major headache for China, despite an unprecedented clampdown in the capital.

Mr. Alim Seytoff, general secretary of the Uyghur American Association, was interviewed by BBC World Service at 2:15 p.m. (7:15 p.m. London) on August 5 regarding Monday's attack on Chinese police in Kashgar. Mr. Seytoff, accepting the interview on behalf of Uyghur democracy leader Rebiya Kadeer, has presented the position of UAA on the incident.

Today’s news carried yet one more item about alleged Uyghur terrorism in China. According to Chinese sources, two Uyghur men, aged 28 and 33 respectively, drove a truck into a group of Chinese border guards during their morning marching exercises at a border post outside the city of Kashgar.