Monday, June 26, 2006
Chinese diplomats face kidnapping http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\06\26\story_26-6-2006_pg1_1
* Interior Ministry directs police to hunt down Turkistan militants * Agencies say terrorists meeting in Jalalabad to discuss action plan
By Shahzad Malik
ISLAMABAD: The Chinese diplomatic mission in Pakistan has said that members of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are planning to kidnap senior Chinese diplomats and consular officers in the country.
Chinese diplomats in Pakistan have expressed their concern through a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They said that some members of the ETIM had arrived in Pakistan and were planning to kidnap senior diplomats of the Chinese Embassy, sources told Daily Times. They also said that members of terrorist organisations, including Al Qaeda, were providing support to ETIM activists for the kidnapping, sources said.
Sources said that the Chinese diplomats had sought increased security and round-the-clock patrolling of the Chinese diplomatic mission in Islamabad and the consulate general in Karachi. The ETIM is a separatist organisation in the Xinjiang province of China, and seeks independence on grounds of Islamic identity.
Sources said that the Interior Ministry had issued directives to the inspectors general of police of the four provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory to hunt down the ETIM members and report to it as soon as possible. Diplomatic Protection Department Senior Superintendent of Police Tariq Masood Yaseen said that security around the Chinese Embassy building and residences of Chinese diplomats had been tightened. Police officials had also been directed to visit religious seminaries in their areas and investigate possible connections of foreign students, particularly the Chinese nationals, with activists of the ETIM, the sources said.
Meanwhile, intelligence agencies have submitted reports to the Interior Ministry saying that a group of terrorists has arrived in Rawalpindi and Islamabad but been unable to select an appropriate target for kidnapping because of enhanced security. They said that the terrorists had travelled to Jalalabad in Afghanistan to deliberate their future plans, sources said. The independent 'Eastern Turkistan' envisaged by the ETIM includes parts of Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Xinjiang. The ETIM was added to the United Nations 'list of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and other individuals, groups and entities associated with them' in September 2002. It has also been declared a terrorist outfit by Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, China and the United States. The US government accuses the ETIM of committing over 200 acts of terrorism between 1990 and 2001, resulting in at least 162 deaths and over 440 injuries.
Most recently, in May 2002, two ETIM members were deported to China from Kyrgyzstan for plotting to attack the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan as well as other US interests abroad.
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