China arrests 21 for helping Uygurs travel abroad to join Islamic State
Beijing: Twenty-one people, including 10 Turks and a wanted terrorist, have been arrested by China for aiding radical Uygurs from the volatile Xinjiang region travel abroad to Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan to join the dreaded Islamic State militant group.
Nine alleged militants from Xinjiang were intercepted while trying to leave China illegally via the Shanghai Pudong Airport in November, state-run Global Times reported on Wednesday.
The report said the nine were helped by 10 Turks who provided them fake Turkish passports in a plot to smuggle them to their eventual destinations in Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The nine, along with a wanted Uygur terrorist and another person, were held for organising, leading and participating in militant organisations, it quoted officials as saying. The 10 Turkish nationals were arrested for making arrangements to illegally cross national borders, it said.
An investigation showed the suspects, including an Uygur living in Turkey and a Turkish suspect, charged 60,000 yuan (USD 9,680) per person for nine persons departing from the Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
They also paid USD 2,000 each to nine Turkish people to get visas with fake invitation letters at the Chinese Embassy in Turkey.
Terror-related videos were found on the suspects' phones, with one having recordings meant to incite discrimination and ethnic hatred, the report said. Some confessed that they planned to go to Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it said.
The case is under investigation, and has drawn attention from Chinese authorities for its well-structured planning, rigorous organisation, and trans-national collaboration.
The arrests came in the backdrop of reports that Uygur youths were leaving China illegally to make their way to join jihadists in Syria and Iraq via Turkey, with the intent of committing terror acts in China, the report said.
Uygurs, who number around 11 million in Xinjiang, are a Turkic-speaking and mostly Muslim ethnic minority.
They have long expressed resentment over Chinese control and settlement of Han people in the restive region that borders Afghanistan and the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Xinjiang has often experienced terror attacks staged by al-Qaeda-backed East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which also has bases in Pakistan's volatile tribal areas.
On January 12, Chinese police killed six militants stated to be suicide bombers in Xinjiang's Shule County.
Two days before that, the local legislature in Xinjiang endorsed the ban on burqas in public places in the regional capital of Urumqi, stating it is not the traditional dress of Uygur women.
