Ongoing attacks in Xinjiang, China

[Windwalker]

So apparently there were a whole bunch of attacks yesterday in Xinjiang province, link here.

BEIJING: Eight persons were killed after terrorists launched a dozen attacks in west China on Sunday using handmade explosives in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which the base for a separatist movement.

The incident came soon after separatists killed 16 policemen in the same region. Security forces have launched a major hunt for terrorists on the suspicion that they might sabotage the Olympic Games facilities in Beijing.

The homemade grenade attacks shook Kuqa, a town in the south of Xinjiang more than 3,000 km from Beijing, before and around dawn.

Obviously, I’m not getting anything from Chinese media, but I’m surprised this isn’t getting more central coverage during these opening Olympic days. There’s an honest-to-goodness separation movement happening in the Olympic host country; will the timing of these attacks actually help them achieve anything, or is it stilll pretty much pointless?

China’s not gonna let go, and the feeling I get from current and past policies is that they’d rather kill every last one of that “dirty and violent” [words used by many Chinese people I’ve talked to] minority than grant them anything. That students are not allowed to go to mosques, however, is just one of many things that will make pure appeasement really hard to swallow for them. I wonder how this will all turn out…

[MrDibble]

@Windwalker

There’s an honest-to-goodness separation movement happening in the Olympic host country;

This is nothing remarkable. Did ETA disband before the Barcelona Games, for instance?

@Windwalker

will the timing of these attacks actually help them achieve anything, or is it stilll pretty much pointless?

I vote for “pointless”.