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Terror attack rocks China’s Xinjiang, 31 killed
Boko Haram kill over 50 in Nigeria
Britain, Netherlands kick off European elections
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13 Ukrainians dead in pre-poll clash with rebels
Pro-Russian rebels firing mortar shells and grenades killed 14 Ukrainian soldiers today, the blackest day yet for the military and a dramatic ratcheting up of tensions just three days before a crunch election.
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Terror attack rocks China’s Xinjiang, 31 killed
Beijing, May 22
Witnesses said explosives were thrown before the vehicles exploded. Many of the injured were elderly people who frequently visited the morning market, according to witnesses. A business owner in the market told state-run Xinhua news agency he heard a dozen big blasts. This was by far the biggest attack suspected to have been carried out by the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) fighting for the independence of Xinjiang, the sprawling province bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Afghanistan. In response to today’s attack, President Xi Jinping pledged to severely punish terrorists and spare no efforts in maintaining stability and directed the local authorities to solve the case quickly, put the injured under proper care and offer condolences to families of the victims. A work panel led by Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun has headed for Xinjiang to join the investigation. All the injured were rushed to hospitals. The regional government has launched an emergency response system and organised medical efforts for treatment of the injured, said the statement. Observers say that scale of today’s attacks showed ETIM, stated to be an Al-Qaida-backed outfit is gaining ground in Xinjiang taking advantage of the anger of native Uyghur Muslim militants over Han Chinese settlements. Xinjiang has witnessed riots between Uyghurs and Han settlers from outside the province. The Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking community, resent the settlements as they believe the large scale migration is marginalising them in their own homeland. Today’s attack is regarded as the worst violence as militants, earlier largely confined to knife attacks, used multiple explosives besides triggering car bombs. Today’s blasts came a day after sentencing of 39 persons for up to 15 years of imprisonment for inciting violence in Xinjiang in the last two months. Significantly, Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain who met his Chinese counterpart Xi in Shanghai today promised to step up crackdown against “East Turkestan” forces said to be operating from Pakistan’s tribal areas. This was a rare admission by Pakistan about East Turkestan forces, which China equates with the ETIM. Hussain is in Shanghai to attend the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). — PTI The restive province
Xinjiang, bordering PoK and Afghanistan, has
been plagued by violence for years. Chinese officials suspect that the explosions were caused by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement,
an Al-Qaida affiliate. Xinjiang region has witnessed riots between native Muslim Uygurs and Han settlers from outside the province. Uygurs, a Turkic speaking community, resent the
settlements as they believe the large scale migration is marginalising them in their own homeland.
India condemns attack
New Delhi: India on Friday condemned the terrorist attack in Urumqi saying it opposed terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. In a statement, MEA spokesman Syed
Akbaruddin said: "We strongly condemn the terrorist attack which took place earlier today at Urumqi, China. India opposes terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We extend condolences to the families of the victims. |
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Boko Haram kill over 50 in Nigeria
Kano, May 22
Gunmen then stormed the nearby village of Alagarno late Tuesday and stole food, razed homes and fired on fleeing civilians. “It was a sudden attack,” said resident Haruna Bitrus, in an account supported by other locals. “They began shooting and set fire to our homes. We had to flee to the bush. They killed 20 of our people,” he added. Many of those who fled the Alagarno attack ran to Chibok, where Boko Haram seized 276 schoolgirls on April 14. A total of 223 are still missing. In the third attack, suspected militants killed at least 25 people in a raid on Chukongudo, on the shores of Lake Chad, yesterday. About a dozen heavily armed gunmen in two vehicles stormed the farming village, opening fire on residents and burning more than 300 homes, effectively razing it to the ground. “They came in broad daylight and attacked the village with guns and bombs,” said Chukongudo resident Zarani Alide. “They burnt the whole village and killed 25 persons”, added Alide, who said he fled to Gamboru Ngala town 20 km away. Gamboru Ngala was the scene of a deadly Boko Haram raid two weeks ago in which up to 300 people were reported killed and scores of homes and a market were burnt. — AFP
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Britain, Netherlands kick off European elections
London, May 22 The elections, which are spread over four days in the EU's 28 member states, are set to produce major gains for anti-immigration parties that are bent on dismantling the European Union from the inside. The vote, for which some 400 million Europeans are eligible to cast their ballots, comes as the EU struggles for relevance in the aftermath of the eurozone crisis and grapples with the chaos on its borders in Ukraine. "The immigration floodgate needs shutting - how can you bring more people over if there's not enough jobs for your own people?" James Donaghy, 66, told AFP as he voted for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in Sevenoaks, southeast England. Ireland and the Czech Republic vote tomorrow, Latvia, Malta and Slovakia on Saturday, and the other 21 EU nations on Sunday. When the results are announced on Sunday, eurosceptic parties may top the polls in Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands. The anti-immigration and anti-EU UKIP, led by Nigel Farage, and Geert Wilders' virulently anti-Islam Party of Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, are both forecast to make big gains. The UKIP's rise has rocked the British political establishment as a party without a single seat in its national parliament heads into the European election ahead of the main opposition Labour Party, according to polls in the Times and the Daily Mail newspapers today. The party's rise was seen as a factor in Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's pledge to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU in late 2017. Farage, a former commodities trader who likes to hold court with journalists in the pub, predicted the highest turnout in European elections since the first in 1979, despite the fact that the figure dropped from 62 per cent at that vote to just 43 per cent in the last election in 2009. — AFP
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13 Ukrainians dead in pre-poll clash with rebels
Volnovakha, May 22 The attacks in the eastern industrial belt near the Russian border underscored the difficulties of the embattled Kiev government in resolving a crisis that is threatening to tear the country apart. Ukraine's PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk accused Russia of trying to "escalate the conflict" and disrupt Sunday's vote, calling on the UN Security Council to hold an urgent meeting on the crisis. He said the Kremlin's announcement of a troop withdrawal from the border was merely a "bluff", and that even if soldiers were redeploying, Ukraine was still being infiltrated by "armed terrorists". Adding to the chaos in the east, armed separatists seized four coal mines in the first such confirmed attack on the main economic engines of Ukraine. — AFP
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At least 31 persons were killed and 94 others injured today in China’s bloodiest terrorist attack at a busy market in Urumqi, provincial capital of the restive Xinjiang
province.
London, May 22
The two vehicles, without license plates, broke through roadside fences and ploughed into people at an open air market at Park North Street near Renmin Park at 7:50 am (local time) and the occupants set off explosive devices, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s government said in a statement.
The first attack on Monday afternoon killed 10 in the village of Shawa, some 7 km from Chibok, in northeastern Borno state, a number of residents said on condition of anonymity.
