Terrorism in Beijing?

[Randy W]

.

from the Global Times

 

Tiananmen jeep crash kills 5, police name Xinjiang suspects

 

"The vehicle ran very fast, I could hear people screaming all the way while the vehicle ploughed through the crowds," a female eyewitness at the scene, told the Global Times.

. . .

The police notice said that a "major case had taken place on Monday" and named two residents of Pishan county and Shanshan county of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as likely suspects.

The police also described a light-colored SUV, and four license number plates, all starting with the regional character showing they were from Xinjiang, in the notice.

 

 

from USAToday

 

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/5598db7d88f182f7d8720eb25c28502f287d6dfd/c=282-0-2718-1830&r=x404&c=534x401/local/-/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2013/10/28/1382970202000-AFP-524151943.jpg

 

 

[Guest ExChinaExpat]

Terrorism? I thought that name was tossed in favor or "Man Caused Disaster?" Haha, thankfully, it didn't stick. Or, at least I think it didn't.

[Randy W]

Terrorism? I thought that name was tossed in favor or "Man Caused Disaster?" Haha, thankfully, it didn't stick. Or, at least I think it didn't.

 

 

It's still a major topic in Chinese news

 

http://search.news.cn/language/search.jspa?id=en&t1=0&t=1&ss=&btn=0&ct=terrorism&n1=terrorism+xinjiang&np=content

 

Hopefully, the link will work

[Randy W]

.

Not much to see here, but here's the amateur video that's been posted

 

[Randy W]

.

from the Shanghaiist

The Tiananmen Square car fire is still a mystery, but here's what we know

 

According to The Guardian:

Within minutes of the crash, authorities erected high blue and green barriers around the site and temporarily blocked roads to the square. Transport authorities said that the underground station on Tiananmen's east side had also been closed. [...]

Two reporters from AFP were detained on the scene "with images deleted from their digital equipment", the newswire reported.[...]

By late afternoon the wreckage had been cleared and parts of the square reopened.

Information flowing out of Beijing has been severely limited by the police forces' quick cleaning-up of the scene, and many photos were, fortunately, salvaged from Weibo before being deleted.

 

. . .

 

With great amounts of gusto, as the LA Times reports:

[The] white sport utility vehicle entered a sidewalk and drove nearly 500 yards, plowing through tourists and police, until it stopped near the iconic portrait of Mao Tse-tung that hangs over the main gate in front of Tiananmen Square. [...]

Separating the street from the sidewalk are 5-foot-high white steel barricades—designed to prevent the type of attack that took place Monday.

However,

the white sport utility vehicle appears to have entered at one of the few openings in the barricades, some 500 yards to the east of the square at the intersection of Nanchizi, a street running perpendicular to the main Chang’an Street. The driver then headed along the sidewalk toward the enormous Mao portrait,

which hangs over the vermillion-walled "Gate of Heavenly Peace" (or Tiananmen Gate) that leads into the Forbidden City, erstwhile home of China’s emperors.

Why

Time will tell, hopefully.

 

Sounds pretty deliberate to me

Edited October 29, 2013 by Randy W (see edit history)

[danb]

Randy, Thank you for posting the stories. What we see here in the states seems to be vague and incomplete. We are just hearing today some of possible reasons for the incident. There are a lot of video cameras in Tienanmen Square. I am sure that they could supply a wealth of info to the authorities. I wonder if any of the footage will ever be released to the public. Danb

[Randy W]

Police identify Tiananmen car crash as terrorist attack

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/821389.shtml#.UnDh7NyVPTq

 

Chinese police have identified Monday's deadly crash at the Tiananman Square in downtown Beijing as a violent terrorist attack and five suspects have been detained.

 

With the cooperation of police authorities including those in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Beijing police have captured the five suspects, a spokesman with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said on Wednesday.

 

Usmen Hasan, his mother and wife drove a jeep with a Xinjiang plate to crash into a crowd of people at noon on Monday, killing two people and injuring another 40, the spokesman said.

 

The jeep crashed into a guardrail of Jinshui Bridge across the moat of the Forbidden City. The three people in the jeep died after they set gasoline on fire, the spokesman said.

 

[Randy W]

The censors step in

 

Censors Step in After Tiananmen Terrorism Announcement

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/10/30/censors-busy-after-beijing-calls-tiananmen-crash-terrorist-attack/

 

While China’s Internet monitors often delete posts critical of the regime, the social media censorship in this case may have been designed to prevent ethnic tensions from rising in the capital. On Chinese WSJ’s feed on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo account, censors removed more than 20 comments in less than 10 minutes.

 

Comments left on the Journal’s feed and that of China’s state broadcaster were largely devoid of ethnic references. And while many called for the government to crack down hard on terrorism, a handful revealed flickers of doubt.

 

“Taking your family along on a suicide attack — there’s got to be more to this story,” wrote one user.

 

“Are you certain it’s a terrorist attack?” wrote another.

 

 

[Randy W]

Interesting commentary from the Global Times today. On the one hand, I have to agree. On the other hand, of course they're using it to try to shape the "war on terror" for their own purposes

 

CNN disrespects itself with terror sympathy

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/822265.shtml?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer5294b&utm_medium=facebook#.Unb_o9J9efM

 

The US television channel CNN published an op-ed article on the jeep crash in Tiananmen Square last Monday on its official website recently. The article reviews the "repression" that the Chinese central government imposed on the Xinjiang Uyghur people and openly questions "whether Monday's alleged attack was a well-prepared terrorist act or a hastily assembled cry of desperation from a people on the extreme margins of the Chinese state's monstrous development machine."

Western media likes expressing their sympathy and support for Xinjiang's violent terrorists through interviewing leading figures linked to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement such as Rebiya Kadeer.

However, CNN is way out of line this time. . . .

In fact, praise for Osama bin Laden had been heard over dinner among some of the Chinese public after the 9/11 attacks, with a few commending Bin Laden as "contemporary Robin Hood." Nonetheless, such remarks didn't appear in the Chinese media, which strongly criticized the maleficence of Al Qaeda.

. . .

Some Western elites hold double standards on terrorism toward China and Russia. Doing so will be no good for the global anti-terrorism cause, nor can it mess up the two countries.

By publishing an ill-intentioned commentary, CNN lost its reputation among Chinese readers as well as jeopardizing the image of the US.

 

[warpedbored]

IMO terrorism of any form for any reason deserves no sympathy

[Mick]

IMO terrorism of any form for any reason deserves no sympathy

 

I agree completely. I was living in China when 9/11 happened and, as the article mentions, I did hear a few casual comments about the nobility of Bin Laden. However, the media certainly did not make any statements to that effect.

[Guest ExChinaExpat]

 

IMO terrorism of any form for any reason deserves no sympathy

 

I agree completely. I was living in China when 9/11 happened and, as the article mentions, I did hear a few casual comments about the nobility of Bin Laden. However, the media certainly did not make any statements to that effect.

 

 

Agree with regard to treatment of terrorism. There are a few hard-hearted souls in China who are not happy with any face that is not Chinese, but the pulse I see in China is that of a nation that empathized with any act of terror on the US; especially that of 2011. The Chinese on the other hand rarely get a fair shake from the US when it comes to the caring people of China. They are often persecuted when they go to the US.

[danb]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/06/21326345-bombs-explode-near-communist-party-building-in-china-1-dead-8-injured#comments

 

 

MSN is reporting that bombs went off in Shanxi Province:

 

"The official Xinhua news agency said what appeared to be small-scale bombs went off outside an office building of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party. Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi province."

 

 

 

IMO terrorism of any form for any reason deserves no sympathy

 

I agree with you Carl.

 

I was sort of surprised that that I didn't read any statement on the US Embassy site about the bombing in Beijing last week. Maybe there is one there but I just missed. Thankfully they did issue a high air pollution report for Beijing. Danb

[Randy W]

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/06/21326345-bombs-explode-near-communist-party-building-in-china-1-dead-8-injured#comments

 

 

MSN is reporting that bombs went off in Shanxi Province:

 

"The official Xinhua news agency said what appeared to be small-scale bombs went off outside an office building of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party. Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi province."

 

 

 

 

Yes - the People's Daily and the Global Times are just reporting the same Xinhua story verbatim about the bombing in Shanxi, which is what the Western media is quoting from. No word yet as to the nature of the bombing. They'll keep a pretty tight lid on it until they release the information

[Randy W]

 

In pictures: explosions occur in Taiyuan - http://english.people.com.cn/90882/8448256.html