A few hours ago, Public Security spokesperson Wu Heping held a news conference to divulge details on an alleged Uyghur terrorist plot that apparently was foiled by Public Security forces recently. The most comprehensive Mandarin-language report is hosted at China Net and contains a transcript of Wu’s speech as well as several photos of confiscated evidence and two of the suspects identified as ringleaders. Intriguingly, the Ministry of Public Security claims that this recent crime bust has connections with the Uyghur refugees who were deported from Cambodia in December of last year and the Kashgar and Kuche attacks that occurred in Xinjiang during the Olympic Games.

On June 24, 2010 (Thursday) at 10 o’clock, at a second-floor multi-purpose reception hall of the Asia Grand Hotel, Vice-Director of the Ministry of Public Security General Office and spokesperson Wu Heping reported information on Chinese Public Security organs thwarting a major terrorist plot. Below is a transcript of the news conference:

Wu Heping:

Friends, ladies, gentlemen, good morning to all of you. I’d like to warmly welcome everyone to the Ministry of Public Security’s news conference, the topic of today’s conference is the circumstances surrounding the recent breaking up of a terrorist plot by Chinese Public Security agencies.

Recently, Chinese Public Security agencies foiled a major terrorist plot, arresting plot leaders Abudurexiti Abulaiti (male, from Shache County, Xinjiang, 42) and Yiming Semaier (Male, from Yuepuhu County, Xinjiang, 33) and over 10 other terrorist conspirators, both key and peripheral members, seizing explosives, detonator equipment, and other various criminal implements, forcefully thwarting a terrorist conspiracy and promptly eliminating a concealed threat to social security.

Clues leading to this major terrorist plot were first discovered in 2009 in relation to an illegal border crossing case. On December, 20th, 2009, 20 individuals of Chinese citizenship illegally crossed the border into another country but were then deported and were, according to the usual practice, taken into custody by Chinese police. Afterwards, Chinese police, in line with humanitarian sentiment, quickly released 1 woman and 2 children among those individuals, even setting up living arrangements for them. The remaining 17 were, according to the law, investigated, and this revealed that three of them were fugitive terrorist suspects wanted by the police，all of whom had connections to the recently arrested  core terrorists Abudurexiti Abulaiti and Yiming Semaier.

The Public Security investigation has ascertained that terrorist ringleader Abudurexiti Abulaiti was dispatched into China by the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” from outside the country’s borders, and that Yiming Semaier is a core member of “East Turkestan” terrorist forces. This terrorist organization has planned and carried out several terrorist plots since 2008, including the vehicle attack against Public Security Frontier Defense Officers in Kashgar and the terrorist explosives attacks in Kucha carried during the Beijing Olympics; both were perpetrated by members of this terrorist organization.

During  interrogation Abudurexiti Abulaiti, Yiming Semaier, and others have confessed to traveling through Xinjiang, Henan, Guangdong, Yunnan, and other provinces, secretly carrying out extremist religious activities, developing and training members, setting up terrorist organizations, actively collecting funds, seeking in many places materials for creating improvised explosives, carrying out multiple tests explosions in preparation for the implementation of destructive terrorist activities. For the sake of making the greatest impact, from July to October of 2009 they prepared tens of improvised explosive devices, Molotov cocktails, knives, hatchets, and other implements, plotting to carry out successive, large scale attacks in Kashgar, Khotan, Aksu, and other places. When their criminal terrorist schemes were timely discovered and thwarted by Public Security agencies, a small number of key members of this terrorist group fled to Guangdong, Yunnan, and other regions; congregating in batches and exiting the country from the southwest border areas of the nation. During their escape, the collectively swore an oath to join the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” terrorist organization, to send pictures and other personal information to the email addresses of “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” ringleaders, seek out specific escape routes, and, in doing so, attempt to join the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” terrorist organization abroad. Public Security agencies have learned that these individuals received support and funds from representatives of “East Turkestan” organizations during the process of their escape across borders.

The vanquishing of this major terrorist organization once again proves that the “East Turkestan Islamic Movement” and other terrorist organizations are the main terrorist threats our country faces both presently and in the coming future. Chinese Public Security agencies will firmly uphold and fulfill the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council and strike a serious blow to every type of terrorist activity, conscientiously protecting social stability.

That’s all for today’s news conference. Thank you.

Here’s a summary of the article:

Kurban Hemit and Abdurahman Azat were found guilty of illegally manufacturing firearms,  ammunition, and explosive devices, and of intentional homicide. For these crimes the two defendents were sentenced to death and permanent deprivation of legal rights.

According to case proceedings, Hemit and Azat were incited by extremist religious propaganda to carry out the attacks. In February and March of 2008 the two bought the materials necessary to manufacture guns, ammunition, and explosive devices. They also at this time began searching for targets and eventually settled on the officers of the Kashgar Frontier Defense Support Unit of the People’s Armed Police.

On August 4th, the two suspects used a stolen self-loading truck to transport all the materials they had created to a site near the police station. Then, at 8, when the police began their morning jog, Azat drove the truck into the soldiers, killing 15 and injuring 13. The vehicle lost control and crashed into the side of the road before flipping – as can be seen in this picture taken from the New York Times witness.

The official court account countinues: Azat then exited the truck, attempting to use the firearm he had created but to no effect – he then used oned of the explosives which successfully detonated and killed another individual. Hemit was not in the vehicle. Apparently, after the truck crashed, Hemit emerged from somewhere else wearing a summer uniform of the People’s Armed Police and began by throwing an explosive at the sentinel guarding the gate of the police station. Then he took out two knives and used them to hack at the soldiers injured from the truck collision, causing yet another death and two injuries. At this time, the surviving soldiers managed to apprehend both the perpetrators and a total of 17 people were killed and 12 injured.

Reading the Xinhua account immediately prompted me to go back and reread the only other existing account of events, the eyewitness testimony and pictures provided to the New York Times by a tourist who was across the street at the moment of the incident. The admittedly hot scoop hit the New York Times with a lot of fanfare, as indicated by the deliberately worded title “Doubt Arises in Account of Attack in China.” The point of the story, other than providing some amazing visuals and a surprising eyewitness account, was to sharply question the official version of events at the time, which then was still quite vague.

Among other discrepancies, the witnesses said that they heard no loud explosions and that the men wielding the machetes appeared to be paramilitary officers who were attacking other uniformed men.

That raises several questions: Why were the police wielding machetes? Were they retaliating against assailants who had managed to obtain official uniforms? Had the attackers infiltrated the police unit, or was this a conflict between police officers?

Quite interestingly I found that the terse yet nonetheless descriptive version of events put forward by Xinhua just yesterday meshes quite well with eyewitness testimony, which I believe is in one sense more reliable given the source (a bunch of tourists over a state run propaganda mouthpiece) but in a different way is more unreliable given the circumstances of the observation (unexpected, sudden eyewitness and reliance on human memory).

For example, the tourists noted that a non-uniformed individual staggered out of the truck after it crashed, greatly injured. This, we can postulate, was Azat. According to the Xinhua account most victims were indeed killed by the impact of the vehicle itself, and even if Azat were extremely incapacited on exiting the truck it is no stretch imagining him successfully using an explosive device after leaving.

The NYT account then says the scene turned even “more bizarre” when fighting started breaking out between uniformed officers. Should we look to the Xinhua account, this likely was when Hemit dashed into the scene wearing the same uniform as the other officers which would understandbly cause some confusion, both to the survivors and the eye witnesses. Enough confusion that the testimonies of the three eyewitnesses get a little muddled and contradictory at this point. The number of uniformed individuals doing the attacking is unclear among the eyewitnesses but is always “one or two,” which I would venture to say is within the margin of error for “one Kurbanjan Hemit wearing a police uniform plus the possibility of uniformed survivors retaliating.” I call attention to one of the eyewitness accounts in particular:

He said a man in a green uniform walked from the direction of the truck. “A policeman who wasn’t injured ran over and started hitting him with a machete,” the relative said. “He hit him a few times, then this guy started fighting him back.”After being hit several times by the machete, the uniformed man fell down, and at least one other police officer came over to kick him, the relative said.

An uninjured policemen suddenly appearing on the scene and attacking one officer with a machete until other policemen figure out what’s going on and take him down – it fits the Xinhua description. I feel that other discrepancies revealed by the New York Times account could also be explained by one of the perpetrators wearing a uniform – for example, why did officers carrying machetes freely mingle with other officers in the aftermath? Presumably after the attackers were subdued some of the surviving officers would be carrying the weapons of the perpetrators. Why were there uniformed officers hacking at bound individuals on the ground? Either they were seeing Hemit attacking prostrate, injured individuals, or possibly furious survivors using the perpetrators weapons against the suspects after they had been bound or detained. The bottom line is, if we take for granted that one of the attackers was indeed wearing a uniform, the ensuing chaos is enough to ensure that eyewitness testimonies would have their mental boundaries between “attackers and victims” quite mixed up.

I’ll take a moment to call out the New York Times on sloppy – or rather, greedy journalism. Interestingly, in the article written yesterday by the New York Times covering the sentencing was the only one that I saw that showed any evidence that they had someone look over the Chinese language press release. Unlike the AFP or Reuters, which simply mentions the whole deal in passing, the New York Times includes details from the press release. However, what they fail to mention at all is the Xinhua account’s claim that Hemit was wearing a police uniform.

At the same time, the Xinhua account said, Mr. Hemit tossed explosives toward the gate of the security compound and brandished a knife at the police officers who had been felled by the truck. Mr. Hemit killed one officer and wounded another, Xinhua said.

Shame on you, New York Times. By failing to mention that Xinhua at least alleges Hemit was wearing a uniform, the rather ungraciously decide not to acknowledge the state version of events steals some thunder from their exclusive eyewitness piece, which they in fact quite smugly link in yesterday’s article as still “at odds with aspects of the official version.” That may be true – the eyewitnesses didn’t hear explosions after the truck crash – but describing the press release while omitting the one major detail of the incident which would in many ways reconcile the eyewitness accounts with the state accounts was just bad journalism.

So, what of it? While the Xinhua version of events does mesh quite well with the only existing independent account of events, I still hesitate to go so far and say its the real deal. After all, if you want to ascribe really sinister motives to the PR machine of the CCP – and why wouldn’t we? – it’s completely possible that the story was fabricated precisely to be compatible with the one eyewitness account that “got away” and hit the Western press. Or, the Xinhua version, which was the product of a trial proceedings which probably included the interrogation of the suspects and a lengthy investigation, may indeed by exactly what happened on August 4th. Or it could be somewhere in between. I have to come to the conclusion that, sadly, as with most things Xinjiang, in spite of this extremely detailed account of events, independent observers still can’t make a solid call on what really went down, and why.

Regardless of how well the state version and the one independent testimony mesh together, there is still one magic ingredient missing, and that is transparency. A smoothly knit story does not a truthful one make. And again, the fault rests with the Chinese authorities. The fact of the matter is, if events occurred precisely as the authorities are now describing it, there is very little to lose, if not nothing at all, to be transparent with the global community about the evidence and the results of investigations related to the case itself. Coming forward with genuine evidence linking these two to greater Islamic extremism – after all, the article does mention the two to be victims of extremist propaganda – would provide more credibility to the PRC and their own domestic war on terror. By sharing with the Chinese public and the globe at large a 9/11 Commission report style document detailing all the relationships, preparations, and ideological motivations relevant to the attack, the authorities can finally provide a solid foundation to claims that they have been making for years – that the threat is real and must be dealt with. And while being open will assuredly draw in credibility, the opposite – jealously keeping all evidence and investigations under tight lock and only releasing court documents that must be accepted as truth – only damages credibility and causes critics, both domestic and abroad, what could possibly need hiding. Until the policy towards criminal investigations of terrorist incidents changes, people interesting in knowing what happened are only left with potentially compromised governmental accounts, and, if they’re lucky, a hapless tourist who ended up being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

A translation of the Xinhua article follows.

The Intermediate Level People’s Court of the Kashgar Prefecture in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region recently conducted, in accordance with the law, hearings regarding the August 4th violent terrorist attack against the police on in Kashgar, and has pronounced defendants Kurbanjan Hemit and Abdurahman Azat guilty of illegally manufacturing firearms, ammunition, and explosive devices, as well as first degree murder, sentencing them to death and lifelong deprivation of legal rights.

During proceedings at the Kashgar Prefecture Intermediate Level People’s Court it was revealed that the defendants Kurbanjan Hemit and Abdurahman Azat, over a long period of time, received religious extremist ideological propaganda and were incited to, on many occasions, premeditate and plan the theft of firearms, surprise attacks against military police forces, and violent terrorist activities such as explosions and assassinations.  On February and March of 2008, the two defendants purchased materials to produce firearms, ammunition, and explosives, illegally manufacturing 11 explosive devices, 2 firearms and much ammunition, and furthermore designated officers of the Kashgar Frontier Defense Support Unit of the People’s Armed Police as the target of their terrorist surprise attack. On August 4th, at around 6 in the morning, the two defendants used a stolen, heavy self-loading truck to bring their self-manufactured guns, ammunition, explosive devices and purchased knives and hatchets to an area near the Kashgar Prefecture Frontier Defense Support Unit station. At around 8, when the Armed Police officers were exiting the front gate of the Frontier Defense Support Unit station for their morning run, Abdurahman Azat, immediately drove in a mad dash towards the rear of the assembled soldiers, plowing into them and causing 15 deaths and 13 injuries before the truck lost control, collided into the side of the road, and flipped over. Abdurahman Azat exited the car and attempted to use his homemade firearm without success, and then proceeded to detonate one of the homemade explosive devices causing one death. Kurbanjan Hemit, wearing a People’s Armed Police summer uniform, first threw a homemade explosive device towards the sentinel posted at the front gate of the Frontier Defense Support Unit station, then went on to use two knives to hack at the soldiers injured by the truck, leading to one death and two injuries. The two defendants were arrested on the scene.

The Kashgar Prefecture Intermediate Level People’s Court maintains that the defendants Kurbanjan Hemit and Abdurahman Azat carried out violent terrorist activities, the illegal manufacture of 11 explosive devices, 2 firearms and ammunition, seriously harmed public security, and that the actions of these two individuals thus violate laws against the illegal production of firearms, ammunition, and explosives. The two defendants, with the aim of sabotaging the otherwise smooth opening of the Beijing Olympics and producing internationally felt adverse repercussions, carried out preparatory measures by observing several times when and where the Armed Police exercised, prepared the necessary criminal implements, using a vehicle, knives, and explosives to kill officers of the Armed Police, which is tantamount to the crime of intentional homicide. The actions of the two individuals resulted in 17 deaths and 15 injuries. It was a particularly vile plot, its methods particularly merciless, its harm on society extremely significant, and it ought to be punished according to the full extent of the law. The Kashgar Prefecture Intermediate Level People’s Court therefore passes the above described sentence in accordance with the law.

For many (read: the Chinese government) this will represent a measure of closure for for a rapid succession of terrorist incidents that occurred in Xinjiang right before the Olympics (and one right after). Granted, the two suspects sentenced yesterday are supposedly responsible for an incident that was merely one of many – still awaiting sentences are the the hijacking incident suspects (who may face a more protracted legal process as they possibly are citizens of Pakistan), suspects for the Kucha attack, and the old lady and 8 year old kid apprehended in Peziwat in an incident that probably occurred during pursuit of people connected to the Kucha attack. Nonetheless the Kashgar attack was the most violent and most clearly defined instance of violence with terrorist intent against agents of the sovereign government.

Or was it? In September a tourist traveling in Kashgar at the time gave the New York Times some pictures he took during the aftermath of terrorist attack and the only eyewitness account of it, which was, frankly, befuddling and vague but nonetheless was enough to cast doubt on the official version of things, should we decide to take the alleged eyewitness’ photos and testimony seriously. As usual, the whole incident is mired in doubt, suspicion, and, most crucially, a lack of clear information, meaning that one can only speculate and make insinuations with word choice. Like, China hands death sentence to Xinjiang attackers (Reuters), two ‘terrorists’ will be executed (AFP – scare quotes in original), and Two Uighurs sentenced to death (NYT) – all hesitating to come out and just say plain terrorist. Well, except for terrorists sentenced to death from the China Daily.  But the China Daily is not a newspaper known for being unsure about anything, is it? I’m sure there’s one thing all the outlets can agree on, and that’s the impending deaths of two Uyghurs named Abdurahman Azat and Kurbanjan Hemit.

The pictures themselves were somewhat of a mystery. On one hand, they verified both the existence and the viciousness of the attack, but on the other hand, the pictures were given no context – who had taken them? Why were they released now? Or allowed to be released, given the tight security and scrutiny that always follows attacks of this nature in China? Blurry, taken from afar, the three pictures hinted of amateur journalism, snapped surreptitiously by an unrelated party who just happened to be in the right (or wrong?) place at the right time.

The on-the-spot photographer has now stepped forward to The New York Times, not only confirming that the photos were examples of citizen journalism that slipped passed the censors, but also revealing himself to be a tourist foreigner – guessing from his accent on the accompanying audio clip/slideshow, an American or a Canadian. Furthermore, the original 3 photos have now been expanded to 27.

Now this is totally out of left field. Let’s take a look at the some of the newer photos and the exhilarating new eyewitness testimony.

The photographer along with another two eyewitnesses were staying in a room at the Barony Hotel conveniently across the street from where the incident occured – a place actually mentioned in the recently discussed China Daily article (“Only the rich stays in Barony,” said a staffer at the Yijin. “A single room there costs 580 yuan per night.” — go figure!). They were alerted to the attack by the loud crash that occurred when the dump truck slammed into a light pole in front of the Yijin hotel.

The photographer said that the truck then hit a telephone or power pole and slammed into the front of the other hotel, the Yiquan, across the street. A man wearing a white short-sleeve shirt tumbled from the driver’s side, he said.

“He was pretty injured,” the photographer said. “He fell onto the ground after opening the door. He wasn’t getting up. He was crawling around for four or five seconds.”

Here we have an eyewitness ID on one of the people to emerge from the truck – severely injured and wearing a white short-sleeve shirt. Let’s keep this in mind. The photographer goes to get his two companions, and so leaves the scene unattended for a short period of time during which this fellow – the driver – disappears from the scene. Now here’s where things get really funky:

“A lot of confusion came when two gentlemen, it looked like they were military officers — they were wearing military uniforms, too — and it looked like they were hitting other military people on the ground with machetes,” the friend said.

“That instantly confused us,” he said. “All three of us were wondering: ‘Why are they hitting other military people?’ ”

Woah, woah woah. And that was the reaction of the photographer, who decided at this point that this was something big and should be photographed. In some of the initial photos we do indeed see a scuffle that appears to involve mostly uniformed individuals – though the view is obscured and blurry.

The eyewitnesses seem pretty certain that the people wielding machetes were uniformed, and the people that they were attacking were also uniformed. This throws up some confusion and suspicion should we believe that one individual who exited the truck was not in uniform and was not mobile after the crash.

Next, the witnesses describe two individuals who appear to have been detained and cuffed:

The photographer said that there had been two men in green uniforms on their knees facing his hotel and their hands seemed to be bound behind their backs. Another uniformed man began hitting one of them with a machete, he said.

After being hit several times by the machete, the uniformed man fell down, and at least one other police officer came over to kick him, the relative said.

Wong, the New York Times reporter, takes time to point out some slight discrepencies between the 3 individuals’ accounts – one says the two detained individuals were prostrate and were being beaten, whereas another claimed an officer walking away from the wreck was attacked by another officer wielding a machete, and a fight between the two ensued.

The key here is that according to eye witnesses fighting ensued between individuals in uniform. So obviously it is no stretch of the imagination that the wily attackers themselves were dressed as paramilitary officers to further confusion after the initial assault. Nor would it be surprising to see officers using machetes to attack detained, bound individuals – this could possibly be an officer understandably venting his fury against the perpetrators using their own weapons. There also is, of course, the third factor of the unreliable of eyewitness accounts, which among the three witnesses already contain significant divergences.

Then there is a question of the machetes. Who brought them, and who used them against who? Other photos provide a clear view of at least two machetes used in some capacity during the attack.

At some point in time the machetes fell into the hands of the officers – that is, if they weren’t the ones who deployed them at the scene in the first place.

It became clear to the tourists that the men with machetes were almost certainly paramilitary officers, and not insurgents, because they mingled freely with other officers on the scene.

Again, there are a number of possibilities that we cannot distil further barring a personal interview with the eyewitnesses, or, better yet, a video of the incident. It’s possible that some of the officers were drilling with machetes and used them in defense against whoever hit them with the truck – after all, witnesses spotted a rifle with a bayonet at the scene, visible in the second photograph above, which Wong notes is rather bizarre but I could easily imagine being used as equipment for training and drilling, and machetes could’ve been there in the same capacity. Again there is the possibility of the machetes being quickly confiscated from the attackers and eventually being used against them.

Then, according to the NYT article, the police focused on clearing witnesses, two of whom we can see in this picture, both Uyghurs (I’m guessing from the dress – there’s also a small possibility that the woman at the top is Hui).

It’s kind of weird how normal the scene is. Except, of course, the shellshocked police officer crossing the street. Anyways, after this, the inevtiable occured and the police did a sweep of the hotel the eyewitnesses were staying in. Miraculously, the photos were not confiscated, though on second thought, Xinjiang police officers not being meticulous is perhaps more mundane than miraculous.

So what do we take from this? First of all, before I unleash an idignant torrent of comments, I make very clear my understanding of how unreliable eyewitness accounts can be, even with pictures. I was actually alerted to this story by a defense attorney acquaintance of mine who I know would do an impeccable job undercutting any attempt to deploy any sort of eyewitness account plus blurry picture combo in court. Despite the framework we are provided by the three eyewitnesses and the pictures, as mediated by Edward Wong of the New York Times (who chose what to include and what not to include), we are still left with ambiguous, blurry, and conflicting descriptions which do little to clarify what actually happened that day.

Nonetheless, I feel that the value of these photos are ironically rooted in the added pall of confusion and uncertainty they cast over events that day. They may not weave a precise story without any doubt or confusion – but there is such a precise, and tight-knight account of events out there, and that is the official account provided by the state – nothing less than a clash of good and evil, between plotting, explosives-wielding Uyghur attackers on one hand, representing terrorism, separatism, and extremism, and the good, righteous armed police on the other. The power of these new factors is variable. At the very least, it throws into question the use of explosives at the site and also adds a period of retaliation during which police officers wielded machetes against the perpetrators – understandbly so. At most, the account could present a challenge to the backgrounds and motivations of the attackers themselves and cast the state’s portrayal of the event into a far more cynical light.

“This city is very much coming back alive again from that horrible disaster last month,” said Nico Rodriguez, an American who has been in Kashgar since June. “It’s like nothing ever happened.”

Two of the biggest signs of the return to normalcy, according to Hu, are the worshippers gathering together at the Id Kah Mosque to observe Ramadan and the reopening of the hotel which at times has been called the Yiquan Hotel (怡全宾馆) and at other times has been dubbed the similarly written Yijin Hotel (怡金宾馆) – Hu decided to go with the later. This two outward signs of improvement apparently intersect in that the hotel has “re-opened for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan,” to provide lodging for the religious flocking to various pilgrimage sites in and around Kashgar.

Muslims walk out of the Id Kah Mosque after afternoon prayers
during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Kashgar, Xinjiang. (Hu Yinan)

“Most of our guests are Uygurs, so we only have Uygur signs in our rooms. We’re doing fine, only that tourism here has been bad in general because of the violence this year,” a Yijin staff member told China Daily. “But the degree of tension has been exaggerated by outside media. I’ve been in Kashgar for more than 40 years; people get along here just like they do elsewhere.”

Keeping in mind that this is an English language article and is more likely written with foreign audiences in mind, one cannot help but sense that much of it is designed to obliquely address numerous ongoing claims that there is a Ramadan crackdown being implemented in response to the attacks. Hu emphasizes that part and parcel with the “return to normalcy” are Uyghurs taking part, unhindered and voluntarily, in the discipline demanded of them during Ramadan. The basis for claims of a Ramadan crackdown have been various township and village level government websites that made the political faux-pas of making regulations publically viewable online, and after the news hit the Western press, indeed some of these townships took the regulations off their site, but so far it seems that the Kashgar government has not at least publicly discussed Ramadan regulations, and so the actual extent of Ramadan restrictions throughout Xinjiang remains unknown. Interestingly, Hu decided to throw in the example of an unobservant Muslim into his article:

Traditionally, Kashgar restaurants close during the day for Ramadan. Some were closed; others remained open for business, serving lamb kebabs, fruits and tea throughout the day.

When asked about Ramadan dietary restrictions, a veiled female Uygur shopkeeper, who was eating sunflower seeds on a lazy afternoon, pounded on her husband’s chest and said: “It’s in there!”

“Why need it here?” she said in broken Mandarin while pointing at her own mouth.

Perhaps implying that if any Uyghurs are not observing Ramadan or if any Uyghur restaurants are remaining open, it’s on their own decision. Maybe readers from Kashgar can comment on the restaurant situation there; in Urumqi, Uyghur restaurants are staying open but have notably fewer patrons during the day and become very crowded after sunset.

Naturally, Uyghur testimony plays a big role on any commentary on the atmosphere in Kashgar.

Guli, a 19-year-old from Kashgar’s Bachu county, is aware that there have been heightened security measures, but they hardly affect her. “I don’t feel them. Young people like us don’t normally observe the fast anyway; only the older generation does, and I don’t see how they can be prevented from doing so,” she said.

“Why should I (be afraid)?” she continued. “You know what terror is? Terror is the bad thing that happens when you least expect it to. What happens around the clock is called life, not terror.”

“There is little feeling of terror here, unless you want to feel it. We’re just living the same old lives, ” she added.

Nurlan, a 56 year-old Muslim taxi driver, said the August bombing is the most brutal attack he has yet seen, and that such tragedies will not be replicated. “I observe the fast. We all follow the Holy Scriptures here, so you always have many more good people than bad,” he said.

“I think Kashgar is safe – safer than most places, and definitely those to the west of us. Whatever other people may say, nothing can destroy our lives,” he said.

Though, as is normally the case with studying Xinjiang, we can only see tiny bits of the big picture and must speculate what’s going on in between, because as long as we’re working with media coverage, for every Uyghur who says one thing, you can find a Uyghur who says something else. I do, however, see the logic in Nurlan’s observation that Xinjiang is probably much safer than “those to the west of us,” probably referring to the Central Asian states who are having a tougher time dealing with transnational religious movements. Nonetheless, in spite of Nurlan’s commentary, the government does see it fit every now and then to point out that that which happens in Central Asia also could very likely come to Xinjiang (if it already hasn’t).

I also respect the power of Nurlan’s observation that “Whatever other people may say, nothing can destroy our lives.” I believe a statement such as this not only rings true in general but also is a neutral statement that doesn’t necessarily take either side of the Xinjiang unrest.

Also:

But the ethnically Han owner of the Yijin, who asked that her name not be used, is undeterred. “I know they are not against us,” she said.

Spot the irony? Not a single of the Han Chinese interviewed for the article are named, though the American and Uyghur sources are.

Interestingly, buried in the swelling posts on the anticipated post-Olympic crackdown was an AP article covering the same topic yet incredibly also included quite graphic pictures allegedly depicting the aftermath of the attack. While at this day and age a picture can no longer immediately count as evidence, these pictures are quite convincing. I’ll let them speak for themselves:

And there you have it. As can be seen in the second picture, this location is indeed in front of the Yiquan Hotel (see movie in this post), the place where the attack is said to have occurred, and the utter carnage is quite plain. In the second picture we apparently can see the dump truck used during the attack, burrowed into the entrance of the hotel which is now famously tarped over. Where these pictures came from (I’m guessing crime scene photographer or passerby with cellphone), how they became public (leaked), and why AP journalist William Foreman decided to tack them onto an article on a less relevant topic rather than making his own sensational article all about it, these are the questions of the moment.

The marker on the left is the Frontier Protection Station that the police were based out of and presumably jogged out of the day of the attack. The marker on the right is placed before the Yiquan Hotel, in front of which the attack occurred.

And here’s the video I saw from the Shanghaiist. Basically, you can watch the video and see the landmark features line-up quite solidly with the location illustrated above – the gated courtyard, the various stores, the apartment building, the long fence with nothing behind it. It’s all there.

So the next time you swing by Kashgar, take a picture. And post a link to it here!

Information released in English continues to stay one pace ahead of information released in Chinese as Xinhua’s English language website releases more details on the attack, including the suspects’ names as well as what appear to be results from initial questioning of the subjects. The 33 year-old vegetable seller is Abdurahman Azat and the 28 year-old taxi driver is Kurbanjan Hemit. According to Liu Yaohua, head of Xinjiang’s Public Security Department, the two suspects have confessed, have admitted to observing the jogging routes of the soldiers for over a month, and even quite conveniently had prepared documents beforehand declaring with jihadist gusto the conviction that “the attack was more important than their lives or those of their mothers, so they had to wage ‘holy war.’”

Furthermore, the truck they had used for the attack was stolen and was parked in front of the police station the night before the attack. One of the suspects apparently played the lookout and informed the other, in the truck, of the emergence of the police joggers. On receiving this information the truck driver attacked and the man on the ground joined him.

On one hand, Shi Dagang, the communist party secretary, asserts his belief that “For these two people, it is very clear that they are part of violent terrorist forces, and they have carried out a terrorist attack.” According to Liu, however, “No sufficient evidence has been found to say for sure that ETIM was behind Monday’s deadly attack.” This is key. Whether or not the authorities conclude the suspects acted alone or are part of a vast network is the foundation for sweeping “security actions” across Xinjiang. If the authorities conclude there are other threats out there, the Public Security Department will obviously react accordingly. Already, buses in cities throughout Xinjiang bear an additional employee who checks the bags of all who board. Stricter measures will very likely be implemented in the near future.

新华网乌鲁木齐８月５日电  记者５日从新疆维吾尔自治区公安厅了解到，８月４日发生在新疆喀什的暴力袭击案件，警方在现场抓获两名犯罪嫌疑人，均为男性，喀什人，年龄分别为２８岁、３３岁，其中一人为出租车司机，另一人为菜贩

Xinhua Network, Urumqi, 5 August – Reporters have learned from the XUAR Public Security Department, that the two suspects apprehended after the violent surprise attack in Kashgar, Xinjiang are males, from Kashgar, are 28 and 33 years old, with one being a taxi driver and the other a vegetable seller.

The article also claims that the attacks were premeditated and that the 9 explosives and one home made gun were similar to the ones seized during the notorious raid on a “terrorist stronghold” in Akto last January. Interestingly, the article also mentions that somehow, from two of the “fearsome” knives retrieved from the scene of attack, the authorities are certain that “Holy War” was their motive.

Also, if you’re into, let’s call it “dark humor,” check out some of the gratuitous “artist’s conceptions” of the attack that ESWN pulled from the Hong Kong tabloid “Apple Daily”:

Go to ESWN’s page on the pictures for more sensational comic-book style images, including one where the nasty terrorist gets his arm blown off!

The Karshi police said that one of the attackers drove a tip lorry to hit a team of more than 70 policemen who were jogging to pass the Yiquan Hotel in a regular morning exercise at about 8:00 a.m. In the meantime, the other suspect threw an explosive toward the gate of the station.

The driver then abandoned the lorry to throw explosive at the policemen, after the vehicle veered to knock on a roadside wire pole, said the Kashi police.

The police confirmed that the driver blew up one of his arms after igniting the home-made explosive.

Police found 10 home-made explosives, a home-made hand gun and four knives from the vehicle.

Changing at least earlier reports that one of the suspects had injured his leg – apparently, instead, he’s lost his arm. Joy. Anyways, while checking the Chinese language coverage for updates, I find one page that after repeating the same one-sentence summary was at least nice enough to say “Stay tuned for updates”. Also on this page is a still that was marked 8/4, and depicts a guy in a prison suit who may possibly be one of the suspects (likely not the de-armed one). We see CCTV in one corner but the word for China in Russian in the other corner (???). On top of that, Chinese news websites are notorious for jumbling a bunch of totally unrelated crap into one article and without any alt text or captioning we have no idea what it is, but I’ll throw it out there for you guys anyways.