Anti-terror efforts 'need overall plan'

Lawmakers call for national legislation to prevent and tackle terrorism

The bloody terrorist attack in Kunming on March 1 has given Chinese people a painful lesson that such violent attacks are not confined to a particular region. Senior officials have warned that terrorists in China have become more active and the anti-separatism battle has become tougher.

According to surveillance footage, three male and two female terrorists arrived at Kunming Railway Station in Southwest China's Yunnan province around 9:04 pm. Six minutes later they began to take knives as long as 56 cm from a bag until they had two weapons each. Then their killing of innocent travellers started, Qin Guangrong, Party chief of Yunnan province, said on March 4 when briefing the Yunnan delegation to the 12th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, whose annual session began in Beijing on March 5.

The attack lasted about 25 minutes and killed 29 people before police shot dead four assailants and arrested one at the scene. More than 140 people were injured.

The remaining three suspects of the eight-member terrorist cell led by Abudulreyim Kurban were arrested on the afternoon of March 3 in Yunnan. Police said separatists from Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region were behind the attack.

Qin said local authorities' awareness of and response system for terrorist attacks was weak because no one expected such a thing could happen in Yunnan. No advance intelligence of the attack had been received and the unarmed railway police did not inform Kunming police until 10 minutes into the attack.

Also, the handrails and large crowd at the station made it difficult for people to escape and enabled the terrorists to kill and injure so many people in such a short time.

President Xi Jinping called for intensive efforts to crack down on violent factions and said the attackers would be punished in accordance with the law. Premier Li Keqiang urged police across China to strengthen public security measures at all levels.

Li Wei, director of the Anti-terrorism Research Center at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that although the attack may have appeared a random incident, it was consistent with the tactics employed by terrorists, who constantly look for ways to penetrate poorly protected regions.

In Urumqi, Xinjiang's regional capital, and Beijing, the authorities have long been aware of the need for precautionary measures, but Kunming is relatively weak in this regard, he said.

Li said the use of identical clothing and weapons suggested that the attackers had spent a long time preparing for the attack.

He said the fight against terrorism should be guided by an overarching plan that would implement concerted measures nationwide. "This time it was Kunming, but it's impossible to say where the next attack will occur," he said. "We can't rule anywhere out."

"The attack in Kunming will unite Chinese people to fight terrorism," said Nur Bekri, chairman of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on March 3.

Yang Shu, director of the Institute of Central Asia Studies at Lanzhou University in Gansu province, said terrorist activities planned in Xinjiang and executed outside the region began much earlier than is generally acknowledged. He said police in the provinces of Gansu and Hebei had foiled several planned attacks in recent years.

On Oct 28 last year, a jeep driven by Usmen Hasan and carrying his mother and wife from Xinjiang crashed into a crowd in Tian'anmen Square in Beijing, causing five deaths and 40 injuries. Police found gasoline, knives and steel bars in the vehicle, along with a flag covered with extreme religious content.

The police later said the crash was carried out by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a terrorist organization.

Xinjiang, which borders Central Asian countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been and remains the main battleground in the fight against terrorism, Zhang Chunxian, Party chief of Xinjiang, said on March 3.

The spread of religious extremism has led to an increase in the number of attacks since 2009, said Ma Pinyan, a senior anti-terrorism researcher and deputy director of the Ethnic and Religious Studies Center at Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

Some 190 terrorist attacks were recorded in Xinjiang in 2012, a significant increase from 2011, according to the regional public security department, Xinhua News Agency reported. Two attacks have already occurred in the region this year.

"We should realize that the revival of religious extremism internationally has contributed to the complicated anti-terrorism situation in China," Zhang said. "It has caused many terrorist attacks around the world."

The Internet has become a new and challenging battlefield, as most of the terrorists involved in recent incidents had been influenced by information online, he added.

"Also, we've seen more terrorist cells consisting of family members, including women, because trying to recruit unrelated people into such cells has become more difficult and it's easier to brainwash relatives," Mutalif Wubuli, a deputy from the Xinjiang delegation to the NPC and the commissioner of Kashgar prefecture, said on March 4.

Kashgar will prepare for more terror attack because religious extremism will continue its penetration of the prefecture, which borders four countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On April 23 last year, 15 people were killed in an attack in Selibuya township in south Xinjiang's Kashgar prefecture. Police said members of the terrorist cell responsible for the attack regularly attended meetings where they studied material relating to religious extremism and terrorism. They also underwent physical training and learned to kill by watching footage of terrorist attacks.

Li Wei said the government should make the establishment of a counter-terrorism early warning and prevention system a top priority.

"No matter how effectively we handle the aftermath of attacks, ordinary people are the victims," he said. "We need to set up an effective anti-terrorism intelligence mechanism to prevent such atrocities from happening in the first place."

He also urged the upgrading of China's anti-terrorism legislation to allow the government to mobilize more resources to prevent attacks.

Bo Xiao, director of the legislative affairs commission of the Xinjiang Regional People's Congress Standing Committee, said the Xinjiang government is considering anti-terrorism legislation. So far, the NPC has not added a nationwide anti-terrorism law to its work plan.

"China urgently needs a comprehensive national law to combat terrorist attacks, as threats from terrorists, especially those based in Central Asia, have become extremely serious," said Nayim Yasen, a deputy from the Xinjiang delegation to the NPC and also president of Xinjiang Regional High Court.

cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 03/07/2014 page3)