China denies Olympic link after stabbing of four guards

ATTACKERS jumped from a vehicle and slashed at civilian guards at a roadside checkpoint in China’s far west yesterday. Three were killed, extending a surge of violence that has accompanied the Olympic Games in Beijing.

It was the third deadly attack in nine days inthe oil-and-gas-rich region of Xinjiang on the border of Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations where Islamic separatists oppose the central government.

No one has claimed responsibility for the knife attacks. Government officials call them terrorism acts and insist they have nothing to do with the Olympics. They have not produced any evidence to back up their claims.

Experts say at least one of the recent attacks signalled a new level of sophistication for the region, but that there was not enough information known about them to say with any certainty who was behind them.

In the latest violence, an unknown number of attackers leaped out of a vehicle at a checkpoint in Yamanya town and stabbed four government employees who were taking down the names of people who passed through, said Tu’ersenjiang, an officer at a police post in the town who would only give one name.

Three of the guards died at the scene, and the fourth was hospitalised in critical condition.

“He has pulled away from danger,” said a hospital spokesman. “We are now waiting for him to wake up and speak so we can find out more details about what happened.”

The state-run Xinhua News Agency said the attacker or attackers escaped.

Tu’ersenjiang said police were investigating. The guards were not members of the police or military, he said.

It was the third attack on government-linked guards this month in Xinjiang, which is dominated by China’s Muslim ethnic minority Uighurs.

Residents and experts say many Uighurs are seething with anger toward Chinese immigrants whom many here see as symbols of government oppression.

Anti-government violence has flared sporadically in Xinjiang for years. Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, said: “It was not just one attack. It’s a string of bombings that requires much more planning and a larger organisation to carry out especially at the time of the Olympics when the security is so high.”