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Muslim militants who joined Islamic State in Middle East ‘arrested in Xinjiang’
Militants detained after returning to China from the Middle East, says Communist Party chief in China's restive northwest
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 10 March, 2015, 2:53pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 10 March, 2015, 7:11pm
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Zhang Chunxian, party secretary of Xinjiang. Photo: Simon Song
Muslim militants who joined Islamic State in the Middle East have been arrested in the Xinjiang region after they returned home, according to a senior government official.
“I believe there are extremists from Xinjiang who have joined Islamic State,” said the Communist Party’s chief in the region, Zhang Chunxian.
“We have recently arrested some groups who have returned after joining,” he said, without giving details.
Zhang was speaking during a meeting at the National People’s Congress, which is now holding its annual session in Beijing.
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China’s government has previously said it believes Muslim militants from Xinjiang have to gone to Syria and Iraq to be trained by Islamic State militants and that some had remained to join the fighting.
China has been hit by a series of violent attacks in recent months that the authorities have blamed on Muslim separatists from Xinjiang.
Zhang said the authorities in the region would fight against the influence of Islamic State.
“Xinjiang cannot stay out of the affair,” he said. “We are also affected.”
Islamic State forces are fighting in Iraq and Syria to create an Islamic caliphate in the region and it has attracted Sunni Muslim militants from around the world.
Zhang also commented briefly on the knife attack at Guangzhou railway station last week in which nine people were hurt, but he declined to speculate on who carried out the violence.
Three witnesses told the South China Morning Post that the three attackers appeared to be Uygurs. One of the assailants was shot dead by the police.
