According to news reports which are currently flooding into Western media outlets such as BBC, AP, the Guardian, and the New York Times, a man riding a motorized tricycle and armed with an explosive device attacked a crowd on the streets of Aksu, which is located in the northwestern area of the Tarim basin. Much of the information that is shared between Western reports on the incident come from Hou Hanmin, a government spokesperson who provided details on the incident in Urumqi.
All the the reports agree that 7 were killed and 14 were injured in the attack. The incident took place outside on the streets, with the BBC, quoting, Hou, saying it occurred at an intersection while the New York Times states that the attack actually occurred on a bridge. Hou has emphasized that the victims were all local residents and belonged to several ethnicities, and, quote, innocent civilians. The Guardian, talking to an unnamed local police official, said that victims included a group of Uyghur residents who were working with local security forces in patrolling the streets and “reporting crimes.”
More valuable information can be gleaned from this Mandarin coverage from ifeng (h/t @henrykszad at Twitter). Interestingly, this article states that one person who was aiding police (Mandarin: 1名协警员) was about to lead fifteen border patrol officers (Mandarin: 带15名联防队员) in a patrol at the T-intersection of Kalatale and Wuka roads. While they were lined up on the side of the road the attacker drove his tricycle by the group and threw (抛出) an explosive at them, instantly killing 5, with 2 dying later at the hospital, 14 injured, and several vehicles at the scene, some police vehicles, some civilian vehicles damaged or destroyed. This information supplements, clarifies, and even challenges some of the information that has been divulged in the Western reports. With the information from the ifeng report when can almost pinpoint exactly where the incident occurred: not precisely in Aksu city proper, but in a suburb, Yiganqi, at the intersection mentioned above which is 50 meters West of the river dividing Aksu from Yiganqi (this explains why the earlier NYT report mentioned a bridge – if not exactly on the bridge, then the incident occurred very close to it). This is about as accurate as we can get for now:
View 2010-08-19 Aksu Attack in a larger map
A few things of note, the intersection that I’ve marked is on Wuka Road, but the smaller road off it is not labeled, but I’m fairly confident it is Kalatale Road as it’s a T intersection and it’s almost exactly 50 meters west of the bridge over the river. It’s very clear from the satellite imagery that this intersection leads into a Uyghur area of Aksu (the short, squat buildings and unorganized layout almost certainly makes it a Uyghur neighborhood as opposed to a Chinese neighborhood with apartment buildings arranged in roads – see Kashgar satellite imagery for another contrast), and so it does seem that the attack occurred as a patrol was about to enter or inspect a Uyghur area.
All the reports agree that the perpetrator was caught at the scene of the attack.
What will happen in the wake of this attack
If previous attacks of this nature are anything to go by, I predict that there will be a trial very soon, perhaps within the next one or two months. At the trial, the suspect will most likely “admit” connections to organized “East Turkestan” terrorist networks and may perhaps even be linked to the two alleged ETIM terrorist masterminds that were caught and implicated two months ago. Again, if the government goes by its usual playbook, after the guilty verdict and the death penalty go up and are approved by the Supreme Court the suspect will be quietly executed without much media fanfare about a year after the verdict. This Aksu incident – which will probably be immortalized in Chinese records as the “8-19 incident” （八·十九事件 or maybe 八·十九爆炸事件 or something like that) – will triumphantly be added to the litany of “terrorist attacks” that local authorities have and will refer to to make a case to both domestic and global audiences that China is a victim of international terrorism.
What should we make of it
Well. Was it terrorism?
Before we answer that, it’s important to observe the uncanny similarities between this attack and the attack that occurred in Kashgar in August of 2008. Both were attacks carried out against border patrol units that were out on the streets, patrolling. Both involved young, local males (yes, this hasn’t been established from the Aksu case, but I’m almost certain that’s what it will be) using improvised explosive devices which were tossed, used, or thrown as the attackers approached the patrol in some sort of vehicle. In spite of these explosives, both were emphatically not suicide bombings. And in both cases, the perpetrators were caught alive after killing and injuring several of their intended victims.
The methods of these two attacks, their apparent spontaneity, and their choice of target to me indicate that rather than being carefully supplied, supported, and planned strikes against targets of imminent political value, both of these attacks were on-the-spot decisions carried out by disgruntled individuals against context-specific targets using the most readily available and obvious devices. Without intending to downplay the tragic loss of life in this attack, the explosives employed by the perpetrator clearly did not require the level of pre-planning required for the Oklahoma City bombing or the level of coordination and organization required for the 9/11 hijackings. Given the importance of the farming and mining industries in the area around Aksu and Uyghurs’ participation in those industries, procuring chemically volatile materials that could harm a group of people on the street is just as feasible for a disgruntled malcontent as it is for a terrorist with transnational financial support.
But more revealing in this case are the targets of this attack, where, according to the Chinese report, one individual was leading a group of public security officers into an inspection of an obviously Uyghur neighborhood. Anything ranging from a hatred of someone perceived as a race traitor (if the informant, put mildly in Chinese as “an individual assisting the police,” was Uyghur, which seems to be the case) to something specific – perhaps the informant was specifically about to turn in or inform on the attacker for any sort of crime – could have been motivation for the attacker to grab the nearest volatile devices and attack the patrol before it could arrive. In which case, we see incidents all over the world, very frequently in the United States, where “snitches” are murdered for their collaboration with the authorities, or armed holdouts with “You’ll never catch me coppers” attitudes engage in gunfights or hostage-taking situations with the authorities. Is this terrorism? No. And so I contend that, lacking accurate and trustworthy information, which is almost always the case with incidents in Xinjiang, we cannot unilaterally consider this incident a terrorist attack. However, I anticipate that this is exactly how this incident will be portrayed given the usefulness of such an incident to the government’s ongoing efforts to depict the area as a terrorism-plagued region. That being said, we will look closely at what information gets revealed – and what information doesn’t – in the coming weeks and months.
Comments 13
Wow. Great post. Great research. That is what the internet is for.
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 7:25 am ¶I am no apologist for the Chinese government and their policies in Xinjiang, but at first glance this incident would appear to be terrorist in nature. Attacking police on patrol near a Uyghur neighborhood would be ripe with political significance, whether those police are Uyghur or Han; they are the the personification of state power. And the level of planning required for this or any attack does not necessarily have anything to do with its intent. That the attacker chose to use an explosive powerful enough to instantly kill five people and hoped to survive shows that at least a modicum of planning was involved.
I agree that this incident will likely be used by the authorities as justification for harsh policies and that the details will never see the light of day, but your concluding paragraph is really grasping based on the infotmation that now exists.
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 8:22 am ¶Ultimately it’s going to come down to one’s definition of terrorism. Based on my understanding of this notoriously amorphous concept, I disagree that it should be treated as terrorism.
One of the definitions we can start with, of course, is that which causes terror. This is probably one of the indisputable bases for the term. I believe that causing widespread social and psychological terror that stretches beyond the intended target – the patrol of that day – was neither the intent, nor will it be the consequence of what happened. The sense of security – or lackthereof – will remain totally unchanged from yesterday to tomorrow, as the risk PRC policemen face against “angry people armed with procurable items” remains the same as ever. The police will not “live in terror” nor will there be any changes in outlook or tactics for the better or the worse in the wake of this attack – save for, perhaps, a deeper “militarization” of police and higher states of security but that was a trend that was already happening in the first place. If this man was a terrorist, then, arguably, Yang Jia, who targeted officers who represented “the state” by virtue of the fact that they represented the state and also used homemade explosives, is also a terrorist. I, personally, don’t think Yang Jia is a terrorist. I draw a line between violent manifestations of individual anger and premeditated attacks whose significance goes beyond the targets themselves.
The goal of the attack was exactly that, it was to kill police officers, because police officers were making him angry. It wasn’t kill police officers to serve a clearly articulated political end or serve a political philosophy. Information revealed by the particularly informative RFA article (http://bit.ly/bAzukJ) backs this up; these police patrols were harassing citizens. The Twin Towers didn’t do anything, directly, to Osama Bin Laden and his kin. The Federal Building in OK didn’t do anything to Tim McVeigh; these were targeted for their symbolic significance and the terror that would follow in the wake of their destruction. In this case, it seems quite evident that the attack was direct retaliation against behavior seen as unacceptable beyond breaking point by the perpetrator (and, probably, his neighbors, friends, and family). Just like Yang Jia – in spite of the panoply of social issues revealed by this case, Yang Jia’s local motive was to kill police officers.
Several definitions if terrorism involve the level of organization as well as external material support for the terrorist act. A supporting organization – irrespective of how distant that support is, even if it is just “moral support,” indicates that the attack was carried out under the auspices of some sort of identifiable ideology, usually against another ideology. And usually, this aim is stated, not hidden. Again, while the Uyghur perpetrator could (if one contrives alot) be depicted as representing “broad Uyghur discontent” and the police officers being interchangeable “representations of Han colonialism,” (and this depiction probably isn’t wrong), I contend that these are entirely tertiary to what happened based on what we know. If the RFA information is to be considered true, then the man was responding to local and immediate harassment that *those* exact police officers – not the vague “Chinese colonizing state” – were undertaking. Again, this really removes it from the field of terrorism; in every plane bombing, suicide attack, or explosion we consider terrorism the terrorist wasn’t retaliating against those airplane passengers, bazaar market-goers, or NY businesspeople because of what those people did to the perpetrator, in fact, they targeted them because of the ability to strike terror in a larger populace precisely because of the innocence and randomness of the victims.
Terrorism and spontaneous eruptions of social discontent must be handled very differently, and to treat one as the other is a very bad idea. And so I remain quite committed to the idea that this isn’t terrorism. But like I said, I’m sure the Chinese government will treat it that way, with the usual unproductive consequences.
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 9:07 am ¶I disagree kahraman. Terrorism implies a desired effect and is not dependent on the amount of planning or the power of explosive.
What’s the difference between this and somebody taking a gun and shooting up a neighborhood? Both are done out of anger (with a hope to survive) but for some reason we characterize the gunman as a “criminal” not a “terrorist”.
I think the meaning of the word “terror” in our world today implies a connection with a group of people or a central cause. As terrible and unpardonable as this bombing is, do you really think he was in cahoots with a terrorist organization?
This man should be tried as a criminal in a fair trail (difficult, I know), but he shouldn’t be branded a “terrorist” I don’t think. Just my personal opinion.
By the way, nice work on this article, Porfiry. Well-researched.
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 9:12 am ¶@Porfiriy I do well understand your point about terrorism and in retrospect it is probably too early to definitively classify it as such. That said, I don’t think that possibility can be ruled out until more facts come to light. The cited RFA article doesn’t clarify all that much as its information is circumstancial.
And by terrorism I did not mean to suggest that the attackers were somehow affiliated with the nebulous terrorist organizations cited by the Chinese government.
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 9:42 pm ¶I do think all can agree that this act did have a clear political dimension. where it falls on the spectrum between criminal act and terrorism is somewhat less clear.
@josh I think the difference between this and someone shooting up a neighborhood is that this act had a clear target of political significance. That, along with the involvement of at least two people (one man and one woman) and some civilian casualties display at least some elements of terrorist action. At the end of the day it though, it really does depend on how terrorism is defined. That said, Porfiriy is right that regardless, the Chinese government will define this as terrorism and attempt to link it ETIM, WUC, Al qaeda etc. (organized terrorism, real or imagined)
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 9:53 pm ¶This is an interesting incident in terms of the persons (attackers and victims) involved that some of them (if not all) are uyghurs, which makes me recall previous incidents in which pre-Chinese Imam were attacked…so the question is: is this an internal Uyghur between pro-Chinese or even whose who work for the Chinese government and dissidents? Does is indicates a governmental policy change that began to heavily deploy Uyghurs to counter Uyghurs, or updated Chinese version of using barbarian to control barbarians? If this is the case, then I will anticipate that the Chinese government will not highlight this event as international terrorism, but as domestic/local/regional/criminal acts..
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 10:57 pm ¶first, sorry for my typo mistake in my previous response where pre-Chinese should be pro-Chinese…
The New Dominion made a good comparison between Yang jia and attachers in this event. Simply, if Yang jia is not labelled as terrorist, how could these attackers be identified as terrorists? simply because of their locality and ethnicity? if this is the case and logic, then the Chinese government is the biggest separatist for it ideologically and rhetorically distinguish attackers of this sort between “separatist/terrorists’ or just normal criminals based on their ethnicity, religion and locality….
Posted 20 Aug 2010 at 11:20 pm ¶The yang jia comparison only goes so far in this case. yang jia’s motive seems quite clear after having exhausted all means to resolve his complaint and being beaten by the police besides. In this case none of this background is clear; it is only insinuated in some articles that this may have been connected to harrassment of covered uyghur women and bearded uyghur men, but the facts have not been established. (maybe they never will be). it may be that the aksu attackers were responding at a threshold well below that of yang jia or only to perceived slights. but in any event none of that is established…. if anyone has references that cite a clear motive, I would be interested to see them. in the interim, judgement should be reserved
Posted 21 Aug 2010 at 10:01 pm ¶Terrorism Verdict:
China’s Terrorist and Porfiriy (maybe also Josh)’s disgruntled Freedom Fighter.
Posted 24 Aug 2010 at 3:42 am ¶Nah, neither nor. May be hard for you to grasp but there are more than two mutually exclusive categories here.
Posted 24 Aug 2010 at 6:58 am ¶China hasn’t even clearly labeled this as terrorism as far as I know…. its sort of a catch 22 for them. It would fit in well with the govt. line on xinjiang but it would also paint them as being incompetent incapable of stopping it as these incidents keep occurring semi regularly in xinjiang. we can be fairly sure details will never be forthcoming publicly. ultimately if no cut and dry narrative can be formed they’ll likely try to ignore this story and hope people forget
Posted 25 Aug 2010 at 7:39 am ¶Yep, I was pretty much completely wrong on my guess as how the gov would approach the attack’s propaganda value. This 8-26 Xinhua article mentions the PSB’s clear-cut categorizing of the attack as a “violent criminal incident.” I’m pretty amused with this one instance where the PSB and I have the same ontological approach to an ethnic XJ issue: I, too, think this was a violent criminal incident!
Anyway, I’m pretty curious as to what kind of machinery is driving the decisions about how to classify and talk about the attack, particularly in light of two things, first, the sort of wacky behavior we see when individual Aksu police officers deny the incident ever happened when contacted directly by Western reporters, and, more importantly perhaps, emerging allegations that would even further reinforce the incident as being terrorist in nature, namely, the arrest of four other “collaborators” and the assertion in the latest articles (which seem to conflict with the earlier ifeng article, also in Mandarin) that a 5 year old kid and her mother were among the victims. If anything these “case facts” could even further reinforce a “victim of terrorism” narrative but in this particular instance they appear to be shying away from that route.
Very interesting and qalaymiqan.
Posted 26 Aug 2010 at 9:06 am ¶