Islamist group calls Tiananmen attack that killed Pinay 'jihadi operation' – SITE

DUBAI - An Islamist group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party said a deadly car crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Oct. 28 was a "jihadi operation" by its mujahideen, or holy warriors, the SITE monitoring service said.

The service, which tracks Islamist militant statements, said the party had released a Uighur language audio speech from its leader Abdullah Mansour in which he said such operations were only the beginning of attacks on Chinese authorities.

In the attack, a vehicle ploughed through bystanders on the edge of the capital's Tiananmen Square and burst into flames, killing the three people in the car and two bystanders including a Filipina tourist.

In an eight-minute message, Mansour said Uighur fighters would target even the Great Hall of the People, where the Chinese parliament meets and China's Communist Party holds legislative and ceremonial activities, SITE said.

The service quoted Mansour as saying: "O Chinese unbelievers, know that you have been fooling East Turkestan for the last 60 years, but now they have awakened. The people have learned who is the real enemy and they returned to their own religion. They learned the lesson."

Chinese authorities have blamed what they called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a Muslim Uighur separatist group, for the attack, and arrested five people they said were radical Islamists planning a holy war.

It was not immediately clear if that group is connected to the one purportedly led by Mansour. Security has since been strengthened in both Beijing and in Xinjiang, the restive far western region the Uighurs call home. — Reuters

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